Created in Great Britain in 1936 under the chairmanship of a senior diplomat, Sir Ralph Stevenson, to coordinate intelligence, the JIC evolved into a weekly gathering of the four directors of intelligence —representing the Secret Intelligence Service, MI5, GCHQ, and the Defence Intelligence Staff—the chief of the Defence Staff, and the permanent undersecretaries from the Home Office, the Foreign Office, and the Treasury. It sets the requirements for the SIS and GCHQ, and since 1968 has provided an Assessment Staff to undertake independent analysis. The JIC is also attended by the Central Intelligence Agency chief of station in London and his equivalents from Australia and New Zealand.
The chairs of the JIC have been Ralph Stevenson (1936–39), Bill Cavendish-Bentinck (1939–45), Harold Caccia (1945–48), William Hayter (1948–49), Patrick Reilly (1950–53), Patrick Dean (1953–60), Hugh Stevenson (1960–63), Bernard Burrows (1963–66), Denis Greenhill (1966–68), Edward Peck (1968–70), Stewart Crawford (1970–73), Geoffrey Arthur (1973–75), Antony Duff (1975–79 and 1983–85), Antony Acland (1979–82), Patrick Wright (1982–83), Percy Cradock (1985–92), Rodric Braithwaite (1992–93), Pauline Neville-Jones (1993–94), Michael Pakenham (1994–96), Paul Lever (1998–99), Peter Ricketts (1999–2001), John Scarlett (2001–04), and Ted Abraham (2004– ).