The Consultative Panel has been established to provide a forum for Children’s Information Services to discuss future developments and enhancements to ChIS. The panel review an ongoing programme of change requests and enhancements so that development ideas and issues can be consulted upon and agreed as part of a continuous process.
All CISs are invited to join the panel on an annual basis.
It is imperative that Panel members remain focused and take an active part in meetings.
Core panel members are required to attend the meetings. If the core panel member cannot attend then they must arrange for a reserve panel member to attend in their place.
Panel members must review all change request reports forwarded to them.
Panel members must consult with their network group on Change Request Reports and must be prepared to provide detailed feedback at the Consultative Panel meetings.
After Consultative Panel meetings the minutes of the meetings will be documented and forwarded to all members. It is the responsibility of each member to agree and approve the contents of the minutes. The Consultative Panel Manager must be informed within three working days if a member of the group does not agree with the contents of the minutes.
Where necessary all available core panel members must make themselves available for an emergency remote consultation. This is to enable a ‘fast track’ process and will only be used when a change needs to be progressed into the change control process as a high priority.
All emergency remote consultations will take place via email and will contain a deadline for response which must be met.
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The reserve panel members will attend an initial meeting to ensure they are familiar with the processes and procedures of the Consultative Panel Group.
Reserve panel members will take an active interest in the contents of the change request report and will provide feedback to their Core panel member.
Where requested a reserve panel member will make themselves available and take on all the duties of the core panel member as defined within the ‘The Roles and Responsibilities of core panel members’ detailed above.
Note: Any panel member that does not fulfil the requirements set out in the Roles and Responsibilities will be asked to give up their membership and allow another CIS member to take the place on the Panel.
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The Consultative Panel manager will collate all of the change requests that are submitted by CISs, Central government and members of the public. It is anticipated that members of the public will only send in occasional requests for website changes.
On a monthly basis the Consultative Panel Manager will distribute a report to all panel members. The report will consist of all newly received change requests not yet reported on.
Panel Members will have the responsibility of notifying and informing their regional networks of the requested changes. Panel members will be expected to collate the views of their networks and bring these to Consultative Panel meetings.
Reserve panel members are encouraged to make contact with the core panel member for their regional area. This will ensure that when the core panel member attends a Consultative Panel meeting they can bring ideas of other members to the meeting.
Due to the time gaps between meetings, panel members may receive several change request reports to review. The purpose of this is to ensure all members who attend meetings are prepared and aware of the issues that will be discussed. It is advised that panel members review all change request reports as and when they receive them. The panel will not be effective if change request reports accumulate, as they may contain a high volume of requested changes.
It is anticipated that meetings will take place quarterly and where possible will be scheduled prior to any major upgrades. Core panel members will be expected to attend all of these meetings. If the core panel member cannot attend then the reserve member will be expected to attend the meeting in their place.
Once a Change Request has been reviewed and approved, it is given a priority rating and included in the future development schedule.
The development schedule will be put on the www.chis.biz web site. The schedule will include details of all approved change requests and their current status.
It is important to note that the Consultative Panel exists in an advisory capacity. Not all agreed change requests will be viable, for example, there may be a financial or political barrier that needs to be considered before a final decision can be reached on specific issues.
If a high priority issue is raised it may be necessary to arrange an emergency remote consultation with available core members of the Consultative panel. This will only happen in the event of an issue having to be raised and progressed as a ‘fast track’ change.
When major changes to the ChIS system are identified these will be discussed at the Consultative panel meetings. CIS’s that are not members of the panel and any other people that the panel feels can make a contribution to the group will also be invited to take part.
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