Committee

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For other uses, see Committee (disambiguation).

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Committee room, designed 1901, in Halifax Town Hall

A committee (or "commission") is a type of small deliberative assembly that is usually intended to remain subordinate to another, larger deliberative assemblywhich when organized so that action on committee requires a vote by all its entitled members, is called the "Committee of the Whole". Committees often serve several different functions:

Governance: in organizations considered too large for all the members to participate in decisions affecting the organization as a whole, a committee (such as a Board of Directors or "Executive Committee") is given the power to make decisions, spend money, or take actions. Some or all such powers may be limited or effectively unlimited. For example of the later case, the Board of directors can frequently enter intobinding contracts and make decisions which once taken or made, can't be taken back or undone under the law.

Coordination: individuals from different parts of an organization (for example, all senior vice presidents) might meet regularly to discuss developments in their areas, review projects that cut across organizational boundaries, talk about future options, etc. Where there is a large committee, it is common to have smaller committees with more specialized functions - for example, Boards of Directors of large corporations typically have an (ongoing) audit committee, finance committee, compensation committee, etc. Large academic conferences are usually organized by a co-ordinating committee drawn from the relevant professional body.

Research and recommendations: committees are often formed to do research and make recommendations on a potential or planned project or change. For example, an organization considering a major capital investment might create a temporary working committee of several people to review options and make recommendations to upper management or the Board of Directors. Such committees are typically dissolved after issuing recommendations (often in the form of a final report).

Tabling: as a means of public relations by sending sensitive, inconvenient, or irrelevant matters to committees, organizations may bypass, stall, or disacknowledge matters without declaring a formal policy of inaction or indifference.
Contents
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1 Procedures 2 Subcommittees

o o o

2.1 Executive committees 2.2 Standing committees 2.3 Working committees

3 Need

3.1 Cross-field reasons

4 Conference committee 5 Standing committees

o o

5.1 Executive standing committee 5.2 Legislatures

5.2.1 Parliamentary committees

6 Steering committees 7 See also 8 References

[edit]Procedures

It is common for a chairperson to organize a committee meeting through an agenda, which is usually distributed in advance.

The chairperson is responsible for running meetings: keeping the discussion on the appropriate subject, recognizing members (calling on them to speak) [often omitted in smaller committees], and calling for votes after a debate has taken place [formal voting is normally only done in committees involved in governance]. Governance committees often have formal processes (for example, they might

follow Roberts Rules of Order); other types of committees typically operate informally, with the chairperson being responsible for deciding how formal the committee processes will be.

Minutes, a record of the discussion and decisions of the meeting, are often taken by a person designated as the secretary of the committee; they may be legally obligatory (again, typically for governance committees, especially boards of directors).

For committees that meet regularly, the minutes of the most recent meeting are often circulated to committee members before the next meeting, and are available to the membership of the whole.

Committees may meet on a regular basis, often weekly or yearly, or meetings may be called irregularly as the need arises. During an emergency, a committee may meet more than once per day, or sit in permanent session, as, for example, ExComm (the President's Executive Committee) did during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[edit]Subcommittees
A committee that is a subset of a larger committee is called a subcommittee. Where the larger group has a name other than "committee" - for example, "Board" or "Commission", the smaller group(s) would usually be called committee(s), not subcommittee(s), and might go by an entirely different name, or substitute "Commission" for "Committee". For example in the sciences, the "International Commission on Stratigraphy" (ICS) a standing working committee is doing organizational work establishing uniform naming and benchmarks in the geologic record and timeline since 1974, all under the auspices of the International Union of Geological Sciences(IUGS). It is technically the "International Stratigraphy Committee" (ISC), which has limited executive committee powers to impanel other subcommittees (also called commissions) to resolve certain matters involving the Geologic time scaleits deliberations and those of its subcommittees must be adopted by the IUGS which meets in a committee-of-the-whole or Congress, every four years or so to deliberate on the subcommittee recommendations and officially adopt or not-adopt such. From the foregoing, it can easily be seen subcommittees can generally be classified further by the adjectives: "Executive", "Standing", and "Working":

[edit]Executive

committees

A subcommittee which has well defined executive powers usually spelled out in the charter or by-laws and which meets frequently to manage the affairs and further the purposes of an organization or entity. These are commonly empanelled as well when an organization has a large Board of Directors such as an international labor union, large corporations (with thousands of stock holders) or national and international organizations. A Board of directors is itself a kind of Executive committee established by the charter and bylaws of the entity and elected by the overall franchisedmembership. For organizations where the Board of Directors is large - say 20 people or more - it is common to have an Executive Committee of the Boardan

executive subcommittee of Board members, which is authorized to make some decisions on behalf of the entire Board.

[edit]Standing

committees

A committee established by an official and providing for its scope and powers. Most governmental legislative subcommittees are standing committees, which by another name is a permanent committee. Standing committees meet on a regular or irregular basis dependent upon their enabling act, and retain any power or oversight claims originally given them until subsequent official actions of the committee of the whole (changes to law or by-laws) disbands the committee.

[edit]Working

committees

An ad hoc committee established to accomplish a particular task or to oversee an ongoing area in need of control or oversight. Many are research or co-ordination committees in type or purpose, and can be temporary. Some are a sub-group of a larger society with a particular area of interest which decides to meet and discuss matters pertaining to their interests. For example a group of astronomers might get together ad hoc to discuss how to get the larger society to address near earth objects; A subgroup of engineers and scientists of a large project's development team could meet ad hoc to solve some particular issue with offsetting considerations and trade-offs. The term when used officially, generally means a group with specific duties and related authority, so when encountered in official contexts subsumes all other official types of committees. The International Commission on Stratigraphy and its subcommittees (commissions in name) are working committees that meet both far more regularly and more frequently both in deliberation and co-ordination furthering the needs of the IUGS (which regularly schedules meetings only every fourth year) and the larger scientific community.

[edit]Need
Committees are a necessary aspect of organizations of any significant size (say, more than 15 or 20 people). They keep the number of participants manageable.

[edit]Cross-field

reasons

Committees are a way to formally draw together people of relevant expertise from different parts of an organization who otherwise would not have a good way to share information and coordinate actions. They may have the advantage of widening viewpoints and sharing out responsibilities. They can also be empaneled with experts to recommend actions by the committee of the whole in matters that require specialized knowledge or technical judgment. A "Defense" or "Banking" subcommittee in legislative bodies or the many International science commissions such as the ICS mentioned above, or a local "board of health" are or may be such.

[edit]Conference

committee

A conference committee is a joint committee of a bicameral legislature, which is appointed by, and consists of, members of both chambers to resolve disagreements on a particular bill. While such committees are common in the United States Congress and legislatures in other countries with Presidential Systems, they are no longer in use in the Parliament of the United Kingdom or most other bicameral Westminster system parliaments.[citation needed] A conference committee is usually composed of the senior members of the standing committees of each House that originally considered the legislation. In the United States Congress, a Conference Committee is a temporary panel of House and Senate negotiators, created to resolve differences between the versions of similar House and Senate bills.

[edit]Standing

committees

A standing committee is a subunit of a political or deliberative body established in a permanent fashion to aid the parent assembly in accomplishing its duties. A standing committee is usuallygranted jurisdiction over a particular area of legislation by the parent body. Under the laws of the United States of America, a standing committee is a Congressional committee permanently authorized by United States House of Representatives and United States Senate rules. The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 greatly reduced the number of committees, and set up the legislative committee structure still in use today, as modified by authorized changes via the orderly mechanism of rules changes.

[edit]Executive

standing committee

The section in the government were the make executive decisions

[edit]Legislatures
The phrase is used in the legislatures of the following countries:

Advantages and disadvantages

A committee is a group of persons within an organization to whom, as a group, some matter is committed. The committee may be formed for a limited duration or a standing committee. Also the members of the team may or may not have other responsibility in the organization in addition to those as a member of the committee. The biggest advantage of committee is that it provides a convenient means of a larger number of people exchange, ideas and information ad take a joint decisions. By careful selection of the membership of committees, it is possible to bring together a wide range of ideas, expertise and interests together. When committee consists of people representing different department and functions in the department, it helps to ensure that all aspects of a decision are considered before final decision. Also, as decisions are taken jointly be all the

committee members, their acceptance by all the departments represented on the committee is easier.

Major disadvantage of committee is that they usually require considerable expenditure of total manpower in the committee work. The committees are also known to cause excessive delays in decision making and in taking action. Frequently, an absence of a clear cut authority and responsibility for results, the committee becomes tend to take decision that represent compromise between dissenting views rather than an optimal balance of conflicting requirements. In some situations, where one member or a small group is significantly more powerful than others, some people may impose their decision on the committee. In this way the more powerful members gain power beyond the intended limits. Further, this power is not accompanied by matching responsibility.
A committee organization is an association of people set up to arrive at solutions to common problems. The line people are given opportunities to discuss their problems in the committee. The committee organization is not like line or functional organization, but is similar to staff organization. Its decisions are implemented, whereas staff decisions are not necessarily implemented. It is a formal part of the organizational structure wherein the members are specifically mentioned. For example, the Finance Committee will include all the functional managers, viz. Marketing Manager, Production Manager, Personnel Managers, etc. as members, and the Managing Director as the Chairman. It will decide the financial requirements of each and every department. The decisions taken by the committee are followed by the line people, as the committees are representatives of various functional departments.

Committee organization

provides

integrated ideas

of

various

related people of

the

company. Participative management in true form is visible under committee organization. It is an incentive to volunteer to from integrated ideas and to willingly follow them. New ideas and solutions of various problems are feasible with the committee organization. It is a very good example of democratic management wherein every member has an equal opportunity to raise his voice and come to a common solution. Flexibility and technical excellence are possible under this organization. The top management is relieved from certain problems. The company can encounter the changing and uncertain environment in a better way. It facilitates high quality and innovative solutions to technical problems. Coordination and control become easy because open discussion is invited in the committee. Ideas and specialized functions are feasible under committee organization. However, committee organization may prove ineffective in some cases because of time consuming and inefficient devices, aggressive attitudes of some persons and inactive role of a particular group. The committee organization should not be used to supplement or support inefficient managers. An able and competent top manager with the capacity to handle the proceedings of the committee and manage disgruntled employees during meetings can get the maximum benefits out of committee organization. On the contrary, a weak and submissive manager or chairman may cause a number of problems in committee organization.

Characteristics of com org 1. A committee is a group of persons there should be at least two persons. There is no limitation on the maximum number of persons. However, if number of persons rises above seven, communication tends to become centralized because committee members do not have adequate opportunity to communicate directly with one another. 2. A committee is charged with dealing with specific problems and it cannot go in for actions in all sphere of activities. There are strictly defined jurisdictions within which a committee is expected to justify its existence. Beyond these limited spheres a committee is doomed to fail as an organ of action. 3. Members of the committee have authority to go into details of the problems. This authority usually is expressed in terms of one vote for each member. 4. A committee have the authority either to take a final decision or it may merely decision or it may merely deliberate on problems without authority to decide. 5. A committee may be constituted at any level of organisation. Moreover, the members of a committee may be drawn from various levels. Usually in such a case, all the members of the committee enjoy equal authority.

How to Organize a Committee

By Judi Light Hopson , last updated July 27, 2012 Print this article

People with a variety of opinions can enhance a committee's goals.

Placing appropriate individuals on a committee is the key to long-term success. Each person should have an interest in the outcomes of the committee. In structuring such a group, it's best to envision those who want to see the realization of common goals. Avoid placing anyone on a committee who is noted for overtalking or having a difficult personality.
Now-a-days committees are widely used in all areas of administration and management on account of the following reasons:

Advantages
1. Pooling of knowledge and experience: The personal skills and Hence of several persons are pooled together. Group deliberations and combined judgment of all the members can be brought to bear on important problems. There can be a more realistic and objective appraisal of the problem from all angles. This helps to improve the quality of decisions. Business problems are multifaceted and require breadth of decision. Subjective and unbalanced decisions can be minimized. "When several people study and deliberate on each critical problem, there is more assurance that every facet will be thoroughly explored and weighed in terms of the interests of the company as a whole."1 A group of people can bring to bear a wider range of experience and a more thorough probing of facts than a single person. 2. Improved communication: Committees serve as important means of communication between the members of an organisation. Information and ideas can be easily transmitted both upward and downward. Unwritten policies and objectives can be explained effectively through deliberations of a committee. Creative ideas emerge from interactions among the members. Doubts and ambiguity can be removed on the spot.

3. Facility of coordination: Participation in committee meetings promotes mutual understanding, team-work and cooperation among employees. Committees serve as an important technique of coordination by bringing together managers from different departments. Members of a committee come to appreciate each other's point of view and they can pursue a common course of action. A committee is a useful means of integrating and unifying various points of view. 4. Better motivation: Committees help to improve the motivation and morale of employees by providing them an opportunity to express them selves. Participation in the decision making process not only improves quality of decisions, it creates a sense of belonging. Employees are keen on the execution of decisions in the making of which they have taken an active part. 5. Executive development: A committee is an useful device for educating and training subordinate managers. Participation in committee meetings provides opportunity for learning through experience. A manager learns to take an integrative view of organizational problems by serving on various committees. Executive development ensures continuity of management in the organisation. 6. Democratic management: As a plural executive, a committee helps to avoid the risk of concentration of too much authority in the individual and the danger of abuse of power. There is no fear of delegating too much authority to one individual. The tyranny of a powerful head can be reduced. Group authority makes for diffusion of power and democratic leadership. 7. Representation of interests: Various interest groups can be given representation on a committee. Such representation may be necessary to secure the commitment and cooperation of people. Members can be enlightened on policy matters and ideas beyond the capacity of one individual can be generated. 8. Consolidation of authority: The manager of every department or section may have a portion of the total authority required to take a decision. Such authority is known as splintered authority. In such a case, a committee of different managers may be constituted to consolidate the authority. In this way the decision can be taken without reference to the higher level. However, frequent need for consolidation of splintered authority is the sign of a poor organisation structure. 9. Avoidance of action: Sometimes, committees are constituted to postpone or avoid action. In order to cool off agitation and temper on the part of employees, the matter may be referred to a committee. Delaying of action

through a committee is a strategy for overcoming resistance, pressure or opposition from affected people.

Disadvantages:
The committee form of organisation suffers from the following weaknesses: 1. Indecisiveness: In general, it takes longer to get decision or action from a committee than from an individual. Members of a committee tend to indulge in lengthy, discussions. Every member has the right to speak and be heard. Matters are unnecessarily dragged. Opinion is divided and decisions get delayed. Group decision processes are not appropriate where prompt action is required. Due to conflicting viewpoints, a committee fails to reach a decision in time. 2. High costs: A lot of expenditure and time is incurred in convening meetings and giving travelling or other allowance to members. Therefore, committees are an expensive form of administration. As such a committee should be appointed only when the gains of committee work justify the s costs. Committee work is very time-consuming. 3. Compromised decisions: Committee decisions are often mediocre compromises between conflicting viewpoints. The ultimate decisions may reflect the opinion of none so that there is little enthusiasm for them. Individual thinking is expected to conform to the average or group thinking. Such leveling effect or log-rolling reduces the quality of decision. The compromise is often arrived at the least common denominator. Therefore, committee decisions are not necessarily the best decisions but merely acceptable ones. 4. Diffused responsibility: No member can be individually held responsible for a wrong decision taken by a committee. As no one feels accountable for results, members shirk their responsibilities. The committee becomes an organized means of passing the buck. According to committees do not necessarily increase the democratic process administration. 5. Domination by few: A few aggressive or vocal members often dominate committee's deliberations. A minority group exercises an unwarranted tyranny ignoring the interest of other members. Members frequently seek to protect their narrow sectional interests. There is a tendency to cloud the real issues and bring in extraneous matters for discussion often a committee becomes a battle-ground for warring camps to settle personal scores.

6 Perpetuation: Committees have a tendency to perpetuate them selves even after the purpose is served. There exist too many committees even for routine problems. Sometimes committees are appointed to just avoid actions. Such committees serve no useful purpose and the aggrieved people remain aggrieved. It is often difficult to dissolve a committee even when it has outlived its utility. 7. Lack of secrecy: It is difficult to maintain secrecy regarding the decisions and actions taken by a committee. A large number of persons participate in committee meetings. Due to its weaknesses and misuse, a committee has been described as "a group of unfits engaged by the unwilling to do the unnecessary." Some people remark that a committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing but who can meet together and decide that nothing can be done. Such remark reflects wide-spread frustration and disillusionment with committees.

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