Overview: Principles of open governance

1. Open governance and the Governance Intranet

Servicing officers are required to ensure that committee documents (i.e. agendas, minutes and agenda attachments) for all open committees, are made available to the University community on the Governance Intranet.

Committees are closed when they affect individuals in their personal capacities and when confidentiality must be maintained to protect the interests of the University or any other party.

Persons authorised to access the Governance Intranet are those members of the academic and support staff, and elected student leadership, who have UCT network access.

See: Getting started in Governance Intranet

2. Committee reporting

All committees are required to report on what they achieve against their objectives for a particular year and against the committee’s purpose as set out in their terms of reference, to the parent committee in the cluster. Those committees that are not in clusters report on their work to the Chair of Council and the Vice-Chancellor jointly. See: Overview: Committee structure

3. Retention of committee records

Servicing officers are required to ensure that there is a full set of agendas and signed minutes at the end of every calendar year, and that where appropriate these are bound. These sets of the formal permanent record of each committee should include all documents, which have been tabled at meetings. The bound copies of documents for previous years, which are not referred to, are to be lodged with the Archivist, Mr Lionel Smidt. This is particularly important for minutes of Faculty Boards, Faculty Examinations Committees and Readmission Review Committees.

4. Distribution of committee documents

The electronic distribution of agenda papers and/or minutes does not replace the need for paper distribution to members by the servicing officer. Assuming that all those who need a paper copy will print these at their own workstations is wrong, and leads to substantial needless expenditure. We recommend that an electronic (draft) version of minutes be circulated to members within seven days of a meeting date, followed by a paper copy together with the agenda papers for the next meeting.

5. Committee membership vacancies

In the event of committee membership vacancies, please inform the relevant office according to the table below: