RESOURCE ASSESSMENT
A review of historical data shows that resources required by the Committee Secretariat to execute its responsibilities equates to approximately 45 mandays per year plus necessary travel to two meetings per year - one TC8 plenary meeting together with an Advisory Group (AG) meeting and one separate Advisory Group meeting; i.e. one plenary and two AG meetings per year. The estimated manday requirement is based on several years of recent experience by the Secretariat (NNI) extrapolated to current and expected requirements.
With the restructure of ISO/TC8 subcommittees, greater responsibility and authority was assigned to the Subcommittee Charts and Secretariats. Greater use of electronic communications, assumption of some duties directly by the Chairman, and streamlining of secretarial duties support the estimated requirements. It is believed that a similar number of mandays may be required by each subcommittee secretariat.
We will strive for ways to reduce, reallocate, or eliminate unnecessary administrative burdens of our TC8 Secretariat, while maintaining the aggressive forward progress and pace necessary to meeting our stated objectives. Each Subcommittee (SC) Chair and Secretariat are to likewise explore ways to reduce their administrative burdens. These combined efforts at all levels in TC8 will be a continuous process.
The overall availability of adequate resources of technical expertise is of some concern; however, it has been proven that when a strong need is expressed by the industry, the resources needed have been realized. A continuous review of these resources versus requirements will be accomplished. A lack of technical resources is considered as an indication of a lack of strong interest on the part of industry. A reassessment will be made of standards development activity and where resource commitment is lacking, a reprioritization of the work programme will be made with consideration to discontinuing work where resources are lacking. Through our ongoing review of existing maritime standards and greater harmonization with regional and national standards, it is believed that the available resources can be optimally applied to developing those standards deemed necessary by the industry.
