Projects

The Chairman of the Committee wrote to the Vice Chancellors of all Universities in New South Wales, societies and associations devoted to studying history and politics, the State Library and State Records, Members of the New South Wales Parliament, holders of high public office and former Premiers to announce the formation of the Committee and seek expressions of interest for grants.

The Committee set a deadline of September 2005 for the submission of manuscripts and a deadline of June 2006 for the publications to be available to the public.

Grant recipients provide regular reports on work in progress. The Committee will not continue to provide grant funds where the work does not meet the standard expected and will withhold funds for publishing for the same reason. Copyright remains with the authors.

There is a short Description of each Project Grant with a more detailed narrative by link.

Audit of Projects

To ensure that the process of determining the projects and awarding grants complies with acceptable standards of integrity and is seen to do so, the Trust and the Committee arranged for audits to be conducted into the worthiness of the projects and the process for selecting them.

Associate Professor Elaine Thompson of UNSW was engaged to conduct the audit of the worthiness of projects and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu was engaged to conduct the probity audit.

Assoc. Prof Thompson found that "All six projects undertaken by Committee members are deemed academically appropriate as is their choice of authors and supervising editors."

The probity audit found that "while probity risks exist, the Premier's Department has taken steps to mitigate that risk and therefore it is reasonable that funding proceed, provided careful scrutiny of the level of compliance with contract terms and conditions for each project is maintained."