The Advisory Committee process, in relation to identifying challenges/issues, determining the priority, and releasing the challenges/issues for resolution:

• • Industry challenges will be submitted to one or more Advisory Committees by the Steering Committee.
    It is important to recognise that one issue/challenge may relate to more than one industry category, and that many submissions may relate to one issue/challenge.
  • Each Advisory Committee will meet on a regular basis to understand and review all industry challenges/issues.       
    “Regular basis” will be determined by the Chairperson but will be at least once a month.

The next part of the process is led by the relevant Advisory Committee:

1. Once the Steering Committee has agreed on a challenge/issue that faces the industry, they will forward it to the relevant Advisory Committee.
   • Where the challenge/issue applies to more than one Advisory Committee, the Steering Committee will:
     • identify the 'Lead Advisory Committee'.
     • notify all Advisory Committees that are involved, that other Advisory Committees are working on the same challenge/issue, and confirm the 'Lead Advisory Committee'.
   • Where the challenge/issue does not apply to more than one Advisory Committee, the Steering Committee will notify the other Advisory Committees of the challenge/issue.
     • This allows each Advisory Committee to understand the current challenges/issues and to identify where there may be a cross-over.
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2. The first step for the Advisory Committee is to understand the details of the challenge/issue and within a set period of time, review and research the full details.
   The timeframe will be determined by the Chairperson.
   Where there is more than one Advisory Committee addressing the same challenge/issue, the Chairperson of the 'Lead Advisory Committee' will determine the timeframe.
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3. The Advisory Committee must determine whether this challenge/issue relates to their complete Advisory Committee or one or more specific sub-committees within their Advisory Committee responsibility.
   For example:
   1. does this challenge/issue relate to Coaches only, or to Mentoring only, or to both Coaches and Mentors, or
   2. does it relate only to Formal Education Bodies and not to Commercial Training Companies or to all education/training organisations?
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4. The Advisory Committee will undertake to research the challenge/issue, within the timeframe set by the Chairperson.
   Once the review and research is completed, the Advisory Committee will identify the detail and may request input (through a survey) from all individuals/organisations registered on the IRCM Directories.
   It is important that all Directories are surveyed to allow the Advisory Committee to understand the challenge/issue from all categories within the industry.
   • Where there is more than one Advisory Committee involved, the 'Lead Advisory Committee' will collate their detail and information before submitting their request for input through the survey.
     It is important to recognise that a challenge/issue can go across one or more Advisory Committees but that, with the exception of Industry Definitions, the challenge/issue may require a different resolution for each Advisory Committee.
     Therefore it is important that as the 'Lead Advisory Committee' creates the survey, they recognise that it may comprise more than one section asking the same/similar questions but with a different focus for the relevant Advisory Committee.
   • It is important that the survey has a set period of time allocated.
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5. Upon receipt of the survey results and feedback, the Advisory Committee will review the detail and collate the data.
   Where the survey has included questions from more than one Advisory Committee, each Advisory Committee will receive all survey results.  The same is applicable to the feedback requested.
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6. Each Advisory Committee will make a decision:
   1. no change is required to the current Codes of Conduct, etc.
   2. one or more changes are required to the current Code of Conduct, etc.
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7. Each Advisory Committee will create a white paper detailing the challenge/issue, review, research, survey results, decision, and where one or more changes may be required, their proposals.
   • Where the proposal is to make one or more changes, the white paper must provide an explanation to support the decision.
   • Where an Advisory Committee is working on the same challenge/issue for multiple sub-categories, and the proposals are different; full details and a detailed explanation are required.
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8. Where more than one Advisory Committee is working on the same challenge/issue, each Advisory Committee will provide their own white paper detailing the challenge/issue, review, research, survey results, and proposals with full explanations to the 'Lead Advisory Committee' and the process moves to Step 9.
   Where there is only one Advisory Committee working on the challenge/issue, the process moves to Step 13..
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9. The 'Lead Advisory Committee' will review all white papers and makes the final decision:
   1. no change is required to the current Codes of Conduct, etc.
      No change will only be allowed where all Advisory Committees propose 'no change'.
      
   2. one or more changes are required to the current Code of Conduct, etc.
      Where one Advisory Committee recommends a change and the other Advisory Committees do not recommend a change, then the 'Lead Advisory Committee' will recommend the change providing the explanation that only one Advisory Committee recommended the change, where all others did not.
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10. The 'Lead Advisory Committee' creates a single white paper for publication.
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11. The 'Lead Advisory Committee' shares its white paper with all relevant Advisory Committees, and requests that they review the white paper and provide feedback.
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12. On receipt of the feedback, the 'Lead Advisory Committee':
    1. reviews the feedback.
    2. discusses all points raised.
    3. makes the final decision.
       1. if no change is required, moves to step 13.
       2. if a change is required:
          1. updates the white paper.
          2. on completion of the updates, moves to step 13.
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13. The Chairperson submits the white paper is submitted to the Steering Committee.
    1. The Secretary sends the white paper to all Advisory Committees for their records and information.
    2. The Secretary updates the Advisory Committee records to show that this challenge/issue is completed.