Scheme Advisory Groups: Terms of Reference (ToR)

V2024-08-14

References: scheme governance & definitions

Advisory Group (AG) members agree to the governance process, principles, roles, responsibilities and rules as detailed at https://ib1.org/sops/governance-schemes 

IB1 acts as secretariat to coordinate programmes and is responsible for ensuring that Members are aware of these Terms of Reference, and enable their enforcement.

Definitions

https://ib1.org/definitions/scheme
https://ib1.org/definitions/trust-framework

Advisory Groups purpose, roles, commitments

All participants shall acknowledge and agree to these Terms of Reference and related supporting documents before engagement in such meetings.

Purpose

The purpose of an AG is to provide expert input to the programme, to address commercial, non-commercial and public needs. Accountable for the definition of direction, scope, oversight and adoption of recommendations delivered by the Working Groups.

Advisory Groups address the five pillars of data governance: 

  1. User needs & impact: Identify user needs, explore / prioritise use cases, and mapping the data value chain
  2. Technical: Agree data and metadata standards, operational technical systems
  3. Licensing & Legal: standard legal data licences, apply data sensitivity classes to datasets identified
  4. Engagement & Communications: Address user needs, experiences, and create awareness and engagement for the programme
  5. Policy: Identify potential policy implications, blockers, or interventions

Programme needs may require some Advisory Groups to be merged/combined, but all topic areas will be covered.  

Appointed by, reports to: Steering Group (if applicable)Frequency of meetings: Determined by programme needs (e.g. monthly, six-weekly, quarterly)

Authority and responsibilities: 

  • Signs off the direction, outcomes, resourcing and planning as recommended by Working Groups. Where appropriate Advisory Groups can be merged. 
  • Creates high-level tasks for Working Groups to deliver, reviews and endorses their plans
  • Approve public minutes for dissemination (secretariat produces meeting minutes)
  • Ensures outputs are produced that address definitions, cohesion, roadmaps, risks, gaps and opportunities, recommended approaches and resolutions. 
  • Maintains a risk register for their Advisory Group
  • Holds members and workstream leads accountable and provides transparency for defined work packages

Members

  • Chairs: The Advisory Group must have two chairs, one representative of the sector and one independent of the sector. IB1 will recommend an independent co-chair. 
  • A wide range of subject matter experts who can address the work required and ensure it is representative of all stakeholders
  • Can include a blend of commercial and non-commercial actors
  • External actors who can provide valuable cross-sector insights
  • Supporting Members from the same organisation may join an Advisory Group to enable additional expert advisors to contribute to discussions (nb: only one can be assigned voting rights).

Member commitments

Member organisations must assign relevant subject matter experts: 

With:

  • Formal endorsement from their host organisation and appropriate authority

To:

  • Attend meetings
  • Prepare for these meetings ahead of time
  • Help in the dissemination of the work to the relevant communities
  • Input into and sign-off documents


The estimated time commitment for Advisory Groups is defined in aggregate (including preparation time) in briefing and scoping materials two (2) hours per meeting.

Antitrust guidelines for collaboration between competitors

The ToR mandates adherence to standard antitrust guidelines aligned with competition law. https://ib1.org/sops/antitrust-guidelines 

Co-chair role and responsibilities

Each group will be chaired by one individual with deep domain/sector expertise and one with deep expertise related to Schemes, Trust Frameworks, Open and Shared data.  This is to ensure that no individual party is driving forward the agenda without consensus and to ensure that the topics represent the interests of all members. IB1 will recommend an independent co-chair. 

  • Ensure orderly running of the meetings (including minutes, voting, as required)
  • Act to drive the programme forward (including holding workstream leads accountable and provide transparency for defined work packages)
  • Bring everyone together
  • Ensure the Advisory Groups are inclusive and capture stakeholder feedback to shape the direction of the project and outputs. 
  • Support the delivery of programmes by working alongside other Advisory Group co-chairs, working group leads, the Icebreaker One teams and other teams that may be required from time to time  
  • Represent the Advisory Group at Steering Group meetings on an as-needed basis
  • Offer scope and direction to working group leads and support the delivery of working group outputs

Co-chair’s time commitments are defined in the briefing documents and include attending Advisory Group briefings, Advisory Group meetings and Steering Group meetings (estimated two or three (2-3) hours per meeting).

Transparency

Outputs from the groups shall, as appropriate, be published openly once approved. This includes formal minutes, updates, briefings and reports. Where relevant, voted decisions and/or endorsements are included. These will be published on the website(s) and disseminated using social media as relevant to the outputs. Outputs will be published under an open licence (CC-BY) by default. Group participants must consent to be listed publicly as participants. 

Participants shall sign a formal Agreement to these Terms of Reference linked to their specific programme and group.

Quorum, attendance and communication

Quorum is defined (by default) as having a minimum of two-thirds of the voting Members present. If quorum is not met, a meeting may be cancelled or rescheduled. To meet quorum at Advisory Group meetings, we request that members RSVP to calendar invites in advance. Members can RSVP on the calendar invite by selecting accept/tentative/decline or by contacting the Icebreaker One team at the project specific email address. 

Delivering programmes in a robust manner requires engagement from all Members. While it is understood that it is not always possible to attend all meetings, it is important to communicate so that absences can be managed. To enforce this, a ‘three-strike’ policy is in place for those who do not RSVP or notify the secretariat team on attendance, or that they are unable to attend a meeting in advance. After the first and second strikes, Members will be notified accordingly and will be reminded of the policy. Following a third strike, members will no longer receive invites to meetings and an alternative must be sought to represent their Member organisation. Should no alternative be found, this will be notified to the account management team as part of Membership management.

Mission, Values 

Mission

To deliver clearly defined rules that can be implemented utilising a Scheme (for implementation within a Trust Framework) for data sharing including, as appropriate: data search, assurance and access control capabilities.

Values

Openness

We will:

  1. share our views and plans, and share knowledge as widely as possible;
  2. solicit and listen to views from end users and stakeholders;
  3. make our outputs available under an open licence (e.g. CC-BY, OGL). 

Expertise

We will:

  1. bring our expertise to the discussion as individuals;
  2. use our expertise to synthesise the views of others in constructive and forward-thinking proposals;
  3. use good judgement to respect privacy and confidentiality.

Collaboration

We will:

  1. support each other in discussion, in decisions, and in delivery;
  2. constructively hold each other to account on our commitments;
  3. ensure all voices are heard and considered carefully.