[CCWG-ACCT] Contribution on Transparency Reforms for CCWG / Budget veto/ Financial reporting

Thu Oct 29 18:52:52 UTC 2015

Chris,

That’s a gross exaggeration. Greater transparency has always been in the accountability discussion. It was the Board’s rejection of membership that precipitated calls for moving transparency forward. There is a debate ongoing as to how much of the transparency work should be moved forward to WS1, but that is a debate on timing, not mission. If membership is reconsidered, I think most would be willing to relegate transparency entirely back to WS2.

Brett

________________________________
Brett Schaefer
Jay Kingham Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs
Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy
The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20002
202-608-6097
heritage.org<http://heritage.org/>
From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Chris Disspain
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2015 2:44 PM
To: Nigel Roberts
Cc: accountability-cross-community at icann.org
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Contribution on Transparency Reforms for CCWG / Budget veto/ Financial reporting

Not sure that’s a fair characterisation, Nigel. Speaking personally, I have been crystal clear that one of my major concerns with the membership model was the statutory rights.

I see the current draft from a small group re ‘transparency’ as a severe case of ‘mission creep’ as outlined by Greg. It’s ironic that many of those with the loudest voices of concern re ICANN’s alleged propensity to mission creep are now doing precisely that. It serves to underline the point I have consistently made about the need for community accountability along with Board/staff accountability.

auDA's acceptance of the designator model is based on the premise that the only power of the designator is to be the legal entity that has standing to go to arbitration and if necessary to court.

Cheers,

Chris Disspain | Chief Executive Officer

.au Domain Administration Ltd

T: +61 3 8341 4111 | F: +61 3 8341 4112

E: ceo at auda.org.au<mailto:ceo at auda.org.au> | W: www.auda.org.au<http://www.auda.org.au/>

auDA – Australia’s Domain Name Administrator

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On 30 Oct 2015, at 05:25 , Nigel Roberts <nigel at channelisles.net<mailto:nigel at channelisles.net>> wrote:

If the proposed new "designator" accountability model is to have the same credibility as the Membership model originally proposed by the CCWG, it must have no less power in relation to financial transparency than members would have statutorily.

(Otherwise, the reasons for the perceived strong objection from ICANN to a membership model probably becomes crystal clear . . . )

Nigel Roberts

On 29/10/15 18:13, Phil Buckingham wrote:

Hi Bruce, Fellow Board Members, Fadi, Co Chairs,

As a fellow CFO, I think Xavier, under Fadi's leadership, has made huge strides in ICANN's financial reporting and its underlying financial processes.
However I agree with you,Bruce that there is still a long long way to go.

Dare I mention $60M gTLD auction proceeds and the $89.3 M "remaining balance" re new GTLDs  as per the FY16 Operating Plan & Budget. Added to the fact, actual new gTLD registrations are 50% below budget .
This concerns me enormously , particularly regarding the budget veto issue.
Following the subgroup meeting in Dublin (that included Cherine, Asha, Xavier, Jonathan Z, Ray  and myself ) Xavier has been tasked with building up the non discretionary / discretionary budgetary  expenditure escalation  ladder re the budget veto. This is a hugely complex task.
Could we take this offline to discuss for me, working at ICANN, to shadow / work with Xavier as an independent on behalf of the CCWG Accountability.

Thanks,

Phil

Phil Buckingham
-----Original Message-----
From: accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org> [mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin
Sent: 29 October 2015 12:17
To: accountability-cross-community at icann.org<mailto:accountability-cross-community at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Contribution on Transparency Reforms for CCWG

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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