ANZSOG partnered with the public sector commissions of Queensland and Western Australia to commission a research project investigating small statutory agencies, with the goal of producing best practice guidance for establishing, governing and operating these increasingly important and numerous arms of government.

Research for this paper was undertaken by the University of Western Australia’s Public Policy Institute. It is the first output from the project.

The paper reviews some relevant scholarly and grey literature and finds that while there has been significant consideration of governance issues in general, there have been fewer studies aimed at the interaction of these issues with the size of agencies.

This analysis summarises the literature and its contribution to identifying issues facing small agencies, and also reveals critical gaps which will provide future directions for this research project and the field more broadly.