[CCWG-ACCT] Contribution on Transparency Reforms for CCWG

Bruce Tonkin Bruce.Tonkin at melbourneit.com.au
Thu Oct 29 12:16:42 UTC 2015


Hello Greg,

>>  6333.  The accounting books and records and minutes of proceedings
of the members and the board and committees of the board shall be
open to inspection upon the written demand on the corporation of any
member at any reasonable time, for a purpose reasonably related to
such person's interests as a member.

The minutes are basically published today.    The only minutes apparently that are not posted are compensation committee minutes – but even then we could at least note the items discussed without necessarily disclosing some personal information.

With regard to financials– we are already moving towards the same standards as publicly listed companies in the USA.   We now provide quarterly financial reporting, and a quarterly call where the community can question the CEO and the CFO on the income and expenditure.   It would not be normal to provide people with access to the raw accounting system (in this case Great Plains) – which would include information on payments to all staff etc.   

We do use an external auditor to validate our financials and processes once per year.

If there is a community  concern about a particular financial matter (e.g concern about whether procurement policies were being followed) – then I think it would be more appropriate if the single legal entity that represents the community powers has the right to appoint an external auditor to validate any particular process or numbers and report back to the community.      Audit firms have the appropriate skills to analyse financial accounting records and also have appropriate procedures in place for confidentiality.

I think we should be focussing on improving the processes we already have.   I advocated moving to quarterly financial reporting, and I have certainly been a strong advocate of making things as public as possible, and welcome suggestions for improving our processes.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin

 



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