Governance
Who decides what
Roles and decision rights for grants, the delegations the gate enforces, and the guardrails that stop agents.
Roles
| Role | Kind | Responsibilities | Decision rights |
|---|---|---|---|
| ASSESSOR Assessor | INTERNAL | Scores applications against the published criteria on a scoring sheet, after declaring interests. | Scores. No funding decisions. |
| AUDITOR Internal audit | INTERNAL | Verifies the evidence chain and tests decisions against delegations. | No decisions. Unrestricted read of the chain. |
| DELEGATE Financial delegate | INTERNAL | Holds the delegation to commit public money under the program. | Awards and declines; variations; terminations; ineligibility notices; closeouts. |
| FINANCE_OFFICER Finance officer | INTERNAL | Releases payments against approved milestones, in arrears. | Fund release. |
| GRANTEE Applicant or grantee | EXTERNAL | Applies through the portal, reports on milestones, acquits. | Withdraws; requests variations; seeks review of a decision. |
| MINISTER Minister | EXTERNAL | Decision maker where the guidelines reserve the decision; must record reasons and report any decision contrary to the recommendation. | Awards under ministerial rounds, with reasons recorded and reported. |
| PANEL_CHAIR Panel chair | INTERNAL | Chairs the assessment panel; owns the integrity of the round. | Resolves declared conflicts (recuse, manage, clear). |
| PROBITY_ADVISER Probity adviser | INTERNAL | Independent check on process, conflicts and fraud indicators. | Clears or escalates fraud indicators. |
| PROGRAM_MANAGER Program manager | INTERNAL | Owns the program objective, the round design, the guidelines and the outcome indicator. | Opens and closes rounds; escalations on overdue acquittals. No funding decisions. |
| PUBLIC Public | EXTERNAL | Sees published guidelines and awarded grants. | None. |
Delegations
Checked in code before any decision is recorded
| Role | Decision | Note |
|---|---|---|
| DELEGATE | grant award | Award or decline under a delegate-decided round, within the round budget. |
| MINISTER | grant award ministerial | Award or decline under a ministerially decided round; contrary decisions reported. |
| DELEGATE | ineligibility notice | Notify an applicant that the application is ineligible, citing the clause. |
| PANEL_CHAIR | conflict resolution | Recuse, manage or clear a declared or detected conflict. |
| PROBITY_ADVISER | fraud clearance | Clear or escalate fraud indicators before assessment proceeds. |
| DELEGATE | fund release | Approve a milestone and release its payment. |
| FINANCE_OFFICER | fund release | Release payment against an approved milestone. |
| DELEGATE | variation | Approve or decline a variation to an agreement. |
| DELEGATE | termination | Terminate an agreement. |
| DELEGATE | closeout | Close an agreement on a reconciled acquittal. |
Guardrails
GL-GR-01 No funding decision by an agent
Awards, declines, variations, terminations, milestone approvals and payments are decided by the role holding delegation. Agents assess and recommend.
GL-GR-02 Assess only against published criteria
Merit is scored against the criteria in the published guidelines, with the evidence for every score cited to the application. No unpublished criterion is used.
GL-GR-03 Probity before scoring
Every assessor is checked against every applicant in the interests register before scoring opens. A detected conflict recuses the assessor until the panel chair resolves it.
GL-GR-04 Payments in arrears against approved milestones
No payment without an approved milestone report. A late report withholds the next payment automatically and escalates.
GL-GR-05 Decisions contrary to the recommendation are recorded and reported
A decision maker who departs from the assessed recommendation records the reasons, and the departure is reported where the rules require.
GL-GR-06 Publish awards
Every award is published within the publication window, with the amount and purpose.
GL-GR-07 Fraud indicators hold
Duplicate entities, related-party patterns, budget anomalies and prior default hold the application for the probity adviser.