The Australia Council plans to implement the new governance and management structure for the proposed Community Partnerships section in July, in parallel with a process to continue its current CCD grant program until December 2005.

Between July and December 2005, the Council will conduct a scoping study that will propose new strategies and programs to achieve its policy objectives in Community Partnerships, including CCD. These strategies will have implications for financial resources, workload and, therefore, staffing within the new structure.

The planned governance and management structure is quite flexible and can accommodate the various strategic options that might unfold.

For example, if the scoping study suggested outsourcing the assessment of individual grants, the Australia Council would do that. Alternatively, if individual grants should continue to be assessed by the Council, it is expected this would occur through the artform boards and Inter-arts structures.

Naturally the way the new organisation operates, and finetuning of resources, staffing etc., will be informed by the scoping study.

The Council expects the scoping study will suggest a number of new ways of contributing in the community partnership arena, some of which could be trialled for a couple of years. These arrangements would then be reviewed and appropriate changes would be made to the Council’s operations.