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The Council reports to the Minister for the Environment and is serviced by a small secretariat housed within the Ministry for the Environment. The size of the secretariat has fluctuated, between one and four full time staff. Currently the secretariat comprises a permanent Executive Officer, two permanent Senior Advisers and an Adviser on a 12-month, fixed-term contract.

The secretariat, as part of the Ministry for the Environment, is able to draw on and make use of the Ministry’s administrative and communications resources. As part of the Ministry for the Environment, the secretariat must meet all public service standards of good conduct and follow the procedures and regulations laid down by the Ministry.

For the financial years 2002 – 2005, the Council’s annual budget was $1.5 million. The budget covers secretariat salaries, operational expenses, Ministry for the Environment overheads and Council honoraria.

The Council was audited by Audit New Zealand in 2004. The audit included:

• a stocktake of the deliverables produced by the Bioethics Council in the past 18 months since establishment;
• review of compliance of the Council processes in achieving these deliverables as compared with good practice in the public sector and with MfE and State Services Commission policies that are relevant to the Council. These processes encompassed, but were not limited to, contract management performance reporting, communications and meeting protocols
• review of the planning and forecasting processes used by the Council to determine the Council key deliverables and funding required over the next 18 to 30 months. ^{[Office of the Auditor General: Assurance Review of the Bioethics Council , p.3.]}

Whilst the Council’s work on public dialogue has provided many rich insights into xenotransplantation and the transfer of human genes in other organisms dialogue requires considerable resources of time and commitment. Such commitment has at times placed a considerable burden on staff and Council members. In part, as a result of the high workload, there have been some changes in Council and secretariat membership.

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