Duties of the Directorate

The Directorate of Session Affairs consists of two departments; Department of Sessions Affairs and Department of Minutes and Printing.

• Department of Sessions Affairs undertakes the following tasks and functions:

First: Shura Council:

1. Prepare the agendas of the sessions after receiving their drafts and attachments from the department of the General Registry and the Affairs of the Office of the Secretary General of the Council. This includes the arrangement of attachments according to items of the agenda, after ensuring they are complete and correct. Then, they are sent to the printing unit of the Department of Minutes & Printing to be copied in preparation for distribution to the members of the Council and the concerned parties.
2. Saving and archiving meeting agendas according to session terms
3. Preparing and supervising the election of the two Vice-Presidents of the Council at the beginning of each session term, as follows:
 Preparing of ballot boxes
 Preparing of voting cards and vote counting forms
 Handling the cards to HE the Secretary General to count the votes in public and record the results in the relevant forms
 Declaration of results by His Excellency the President of the Council

4. Recording the results of the voting processes related to decisions made during the session
5. Saving decisions made by the Council after each session and sending them to the Printing Unit of the Department of Minutes & Printing to be copied in preparation for distribution to members of the Council and the concerned parties.
6. Preparation of the annual report: Development of the report plan goes through the following stages:
 Determining topics, sections and chapters
 Supporting the report material with statistical tables, charts, images and schedules
 Including the Council’s record of session term discussions in the report
 Adding the introduction and index
 Collecting the report material from sources approved by the Council
 Drafting the report material
 Correcting the report in terms of the subject matter and the linguistic aspects
 Supervising the issuance of the report

7. Preparing the statistical report of the work of the Council in each legislative term, and supervising its issuance
8. Updating the department's outputs on the website of the council

 Department of Minutes & printing: This department undertakes the following tasks and functions:

 First: Shura Council:

A. The Minutes Unit:

1. Following-up the technical aspects of the meetings of the Council in terms of the following:
 Recording the names of the ministers and the names and positions of representatives of the official bodies
 Listing the names of the speakers in order
 Recording the results of each voting process during the session

2. Preparation of session minutes through the following stages:
 Audio recording: following-up electronic recording of sessions on segmented files in coordination with the Department of Information Technology
 Converting audio files into word files
 Comparing: Re-listening to the audio file to match it to the word file
 Primary Correction: Correcting the written documents in terms of the subject matter, typing and linguistic aspects
 Preparation of a list of speakers' statements
 Setting the index of topics
 Preparation of the annexes of the minutes including the reports of the committees to be included in the minutes
 Issuing the initial minutes, a draft of the minutes before  the final correction and distributing it to the council officials: (HE the President of the Council, the Secretary General, the Legal Counsel, the Director and the Head of the Department) to take their observations into account
 Final correction: This is done according to the following steps:
o Each employee individually corrects the entire minutes
o Agreement on corrections after checking and revision
o Ensuring that corrections are made
o Issuing the final draft which is a draft of the minutes after the final correction, and sending it to the printing unit to be photocopied in preparation for distribution to the members of the Council and the concerned parties

3. Following up the procedures of approving of the minutes, as follows:

 Making the corrections of the members in each session
 Sending the minutes after the corrections of the members
 Sending the minutes after correction to HE President of the Council and the Secretary General to sign them

4. Sending copies of the approved minutes of the sessions to the Office of the President and the Office of the Secretary General to provide copies thereof to the official authorities: (Royal Court, Crown Prince's Court, the House of Representatives, the Ministry of Information for publication in the Official Gazette) in addition to a copy on a CD for the Ministry of Information only
5. Sending an electronic copy of the approved minutes to the IT Department of the Council to upload on the website of the Council
6. Saving and archiving the original minutes after being approved
7. Updating the department's outputs on the website of the council

B. The printing unit:

1. Photocopying and packaging the agenda of the sessions
2. Photocopying and packing of the minutes
3. Photocopying decisions of the Council
4. Photocopying of previous versions on CDs
5. Sending the above mentioned materials to the concerned parties in the Council for distribution to members of the Council and the concerned parties
6. Photocopying the needs of directorates and departments of the General Secretariat of the Council