Editing Committee 0503 (Democratic Federation of Exturbon) (section)

== History ==
The Committee was set up during the 2nd Central Ministry via a referendum that was passed by the CMin unanimously and by the people with a 20% margin. It was named after the unit number of its allocated office space in the Central Ministry Office Block.

The original Committee was allocated an annual budget of $500,000 and had 50 staff. The original referendum that formed the Committee defined the Committee's objective as "to keep the public informed regarding the Central Ministry's activities and stances."

After the establishment of the Public Accountancy Committee due to the Royce Scandal in 2012, a majority of Committee 0503 resources and personnel were reallocated to the Public Accountancy Committee in 2013. Following this, the annual budget was slashed to $10,000 and only 4 members of the executive board remained as the sole employees of Committee 0503. 

The committee was supposed to be dissolved after the start of the 4th Central Ministry in 2016 and its assets and duties wholly assumed by the Public Accountancy Committee. However, in the years leading up to the committee's dissolution, a stark change in the tone of the committee's main publication under the then chief executive, Jones Ironwood, and a joint agreement between the chief executives of both the committee and the Public Accountancy Committee convinced the Central Ministry to allow for the continued existence of Committee 0503 as a de facto independent publication.

The committee largely depends on publicly sourced funding rather than the government-allocated annual budget. The committee is also unique in that the choice of chief executive is mostly done within the committee itself, with the Central Ministry's role in appointing the chief executive being largely ceremonial.

Employment at the committee after 2013 has never exceeded 15 employees.