The Australian Government’s regulatory reform agenda will drive productivity and growth through better regulation, focused on five key objectives:
- Tell-us-once – Data sharing within and between agencies to make it easier for individuals and business to meet reporting and compliance obligations.
- Regulatory alignment – Reducing duplication, overlap and inconsistency between regulations and regulators.
- Faster and more efficient processes – Faster approvals and reduced regulatory costs by streamlining and optimising regulatory business processes, including through data, digitisation, automation and AI.
- Continuous regulatory improvement – Continuous and targeted improvements to keep regulation fit-for-purpose to enhance economic dynamism while ensuring essential protections remain effective.
- Strengthened regulatory stewardship – Driving improvement in regulatory policy, practice and performance across regulators and sectors through clear expectations, frameworks, guidance and collaboration.
The Regulator Leadership Cohort (the Cohort) is a network of heads of regulators who meet regularly, as a leaders’ community of practice, to inform and support implementation of the Government's regulatory reform agenda and promote regulatory stewardship.
Purpose and role
The Cohort supports the Government's regulatory reform agenda and promotes better regulatory performance and practice by:
- identifying and supporting ongoing reform initiatives as part of the regulatory reform agenda;
- promoting and supporting regulator maturity, skills and capability uplift, with a focus on data and digital capability;
- driving and informing the Government’s regulatory reform agenda to modernise regulation to keep it fit-for-purpose. The Cohort hears directly from Government and provides high quality advice on the state of regulatory environment and opportunities to achieve better outcomes for citizens, businesses and the economy.
- promoting and supporting the Government’s productivity agenda.
Membership
The number of Cohort members will not exceed 35, inclusive of the Chair and Deputy Chair.
The Finance Secretary will appoint the Chair and Deputy Chair for two years.
With advice from the Department of Finance, the Chair will invite members to join the Cohort.
Any subsequent requests that would alter the membership will be deferred until the end of each calendar year.
Members must be:
- The head of the Commonwealth regulatory agency; or
- An SES Band 3 level official responsible for major regulatory systems or functions within a Commonwealth Department.
Where a member is unable to attend a meeting, proxies are generally not permitted, unless acting in the member’s position or as approved by the Chair.
Cohort membership should represent the diversity of Commonwealth regulators. Finance, when advising on membership, will consider the need for a mix of:
- Portfolio – each portfolio should be considered for representation.
- Function – internal to portfolio and external regulators.
- Regulatory type – economic, social, environmental, whole-of-Government, specialist and technical regulators.
- Regulator size – small (101-250 ASL), medium (251-1000 ASL), large (1001-10,000 ASL) and extra large (10000+ ASL).
- Diversity – gender, cultural and linguistical, First Nations.
- Years established – recently established and longer-standing entities.
The Chair may invite other participants to attend meetings to support the Cohort’s work on an ad-hoc basis. This may include other heads of regulators, subject matter experts and senior officials from relevant agencies.
The Cohort will collaborate with the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANSZOG) and strengthen connections with the National Regulators Community of Practice (NRCoP). The NRCOP is an active network of public sector regulators from all levels of government and from every regulatory sector, professional background, role and level of seniority, who are interested to learn from one another. ANZSOG may be invited to attend meetings at the discretion of the Chair to offer cross-jurisdictional insights and practitioner linkages informed by its leadership of the NRCoP.
Members of the Cohort should engage with non-member heads of regulators within their portfolio or related/interdependent regulators throughout the course of their membership to seek input to share at the Cohort meetings, drive outcomes and disseminate information and knowledge gained through the Cohort.
A Senior Executive from the Department of Finance will attend each Cohort meeting.
Chair and Deputy Chair
The Chair and Deputy Chair work together to allocate responsibilities between them which include:
- Convening meetings in accordance with these Terms of Reference
- Reviewing and clearing meeting agendas and relevant papers
- Reviewing and clearing a post-meeting, public-facing Communiqué
- Producing an annual update for Secretaries Board on the Cohort’s progress on priorities and contributions to the Government’s regulatory reform agenda
- Engaging out of session with potential Cohort guests in line with the agreed priorities
- Driving the coordination of members, engagement with the Cohort’s priorities, and other agreed initiatives.
In the absence of the Chair, the Deputy Chair will assume the above duties until such time as a new Chair is appointed.
Priorities
The Cohort will determine its priorities at the first meeting following the appointment of a Chair by the Finance Secretary and confirmation of full membership. The Cohort may refer to the previous priorities and carry them over to the next two-year term where appropriate and agreed by members.
Champions
Cohort members are encouraged to self-nominate for the responsibility of leading a Cohort priority and facilitating its advancement. In the absence of volunteers, the Finance Secretary or Cohort Chair may appoint an appropriate member. Champions will provide assistance with secretariat functions for the working group and bear responsibility for establishing governance structures, defining roles, and formulating terms of reference as required.
Frequency of meetings and attendance
The Cohort will meet up to three times a year. The Chair may request additional meetings if necessary. Meetings will be held in Canberra unless members agree otherwise. In-person attendance at meetings is strongly encouraged. Facilities to attend virtually will be available if required and approved by the Chair.
Meeting of all heads of regulators
An additional meeting may be held where the Cohort Chair invites all heads of Commonwealth regulators to attend. The manner and content of the meeting will be determined close to the date of the meeting to ensure relevance to current events and changes to the regulatory environment.
Reporting to Secretaries Board
The Cohort will report annually in November to the Secretaries Board through the Finance Secretary on the activities, achievements and insights of the Cohort as agreed by Cohort members.
Communiqué
The Secretariat will prepare a Communiqué at the conclusion of each meeting. The Communiqué will be published on the Finance website and circulated to members.
Secretariat
The Department of Finance’s Regulatory Reform function will provide Secretariat services and can be contacted at APSRegulatoryReform@finance.gov.au.
The Secretariat will support the Chair to convene Cohort meetings, coordinate a forward work agenda, distribute meeting outcome summaries and actions and support connection between the Cohort and other stakeholders.
The Cohort may be supported as required by cross-agency working groups, chaired and convened by a member of the Cohort or member of the Senior Executive from Finance Regulatory Reform and supported by the Secretariat.
The Terms of Reference will be reviewed by Finance every 3 years, or when a new Chair is appointed.
