Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) - Terms of Reference
The role of the Joint Intelligence Committee is:
- To assess events and situations relating to external affairs, defence, terrorism, major international criminal activity, scientific, technical and international economic matters and other transnational issues, drawing on secret intelligence, diplomatic reporting and open source material;
- To monitor and give early warning of the development of direct and indirect threats and opportunities in those fields to British interests or policies and to the international community as a whole;
- To keep under review threats to security at home and overseas and to deal with such security problems as may be referred to it;
- To contribute to the formulation of statements of the requirements and priorities for intelligence gathering and other tasks to be conducted by the intelligence Agencies;
- To maintain oversight of the intelligence community’s analytical capability through the Professional Head of Intelligence Analysis;
- To maintain liaison with Commonwealth and foreign intelligence organisations as appropriate, and to consider the extent to which its product can be made available to them.
Members of the Committee are to bring to the attention of their Ministers and Departments, as appropriate, assessments that appear to require operational, planning or policy action. The Chairman is specifically charged with ensuring that the Committee's monitoring and warning role is discharged effectively.
The Committee may constitute such permanent and temporary sub-committees and working parties as may be required to fulfil its responsibilities.
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