[CCWG-ACCT] Contribution on Transparency Reforms for CCWG

[Edward Morris]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for your fine work in this area. I think many of your ideas for future improvements are implementation details that are certainly worthy of consideration.

These do not however substitute for the need to plug the designator model with the Inspection rights provided members under our former reference model. This is where the specifics of California Corporations Code section 6333 come into play.

Rather than work in the realm of subjective opinion in areas most of us do not have substantial expertise in, might I ask the Chairs to consider, for the purposes of work stream one, asking our legal counsel to come up with proposals for specifically transporting 6333 into ICANN's bylaws, along with an explanation as to what doing so would specifically mean in concrete terms to our accountability effort?

Thanks for considering,

Ed Morris

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 29, 2015, at 12:19 PM, Bruce Tonkin <Bruce.Tonkin at melbourneit.com.au> wrote:
> 
> 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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