Talk:Governance/2012 Financial review by Garfield Byrd, WMF CFO

Could someone point me to the email/minutes where we agreed that this should be made public? I can't find a decision that I've been made aware of... Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 14:35, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Not that I don't think it should be made public: but it was my understanding that we were going to write a reply to it before it was made public... Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 14:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

This is a public report and Jon's email dated 10 October, which you have a copy of, is sufficient in my judgement as a trustee for me to act promptly in accordance with our values. The trustees have been sent no email saying that any staff member had a plan to reply to the report, or that this was a precondition to it becoming correctly public.

I have patiently waited 3 weeks wondering when this would be made public. I see no reason for me to ask permission or to force the trustees to have yet another in-camera vote for a public report in the public interest to publish publicly, to be made public—rather than becoming another of our secret documents languishing on closed wikis or in a draft state for many months or indefinitely. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

You're asking the wrong question, Richard. Where is the email/minutes where it was decided not to make it public? The default is to make everything public. --Tango (talk) 18:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

We're going to make it public, certainly, and as soon as possible: I'd just like the office to be involved so that we can answer questions as they come in. As it stands, I wasn't aware that it had been released on the wiki, or that it was going to be released - no-one in the office was aware. That's not ideal. My understanding was that we (me, Jon and John) were going to come up with more detailed explanations of the various points raised, and explain how we're going to go about fixing each of the issues, so that everyone has their questions answered straight away. This review was, to a large part, checking how well my work has been going: having it released without notice just before I go on a four day weekend isn't really ideal, because, well, who would be around to answer questions from members? Jon is on holiday, I'm about to go on holiday for the next two days, Mike Peel is in San Francisco with the FDC, and John Byrne may well have plans too. If these things are going to be released, they have to be released with - at a minimum - the agreement and foreknowledge of treasurer and at least one member of staff. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 19:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Richard: I would prefer the default to be immediate publication with the response following when it is ready. Otherwise the response acts as a veto on publication - "We can't publish yet; the response isn't ready". Filceolaire (talk) 09:38, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Ideally, yes, but there's a difference between having an organisation that is open, and one that has a gaping hole in it. Firstly, there's no point releasing a report if there's no-one in the office to answer questions about it. Similarly, releasing it before a plan is in place leads to us looking incompetent, because the first question people will ask is "what are you doing about this", to which our response would be "We don't really know, we need to arrange a meeting or something, we haven't even read the report yet". Finally, staff should not be expected to react on the fly to things like this. I'm paid to manage the finance and plan ahead - if reports are released immediately with plans coming afterwards, then the organisation will lurch from crisis to crisis, with no forward planning and no time to breathe. Richard Symonds (talk) 13:34, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Fae's deletion of this report from the public wiki

After publishing this document, it has become clear that it was discussed in an Executive meeting that I was not invited to, or was aware of the content of. After John Byrne emailed me today, requesting that this document was removed from the public wiki, I have done so. Jon Davies' email to me of 11 October 2012 appears to be a mistake, giving the impression that the report was released to WMUK. It has been made clear today that there is no objection from Garfield Byrd to making the report public, and there is no plan to have the report amended in any way. I will continue to push to have the report released for the benefit of Wikimedia UK's members as soon as possible in line with our stated values, as I have yet to be given any non-bureaucratic reason as to why this must be kept secret for any longer than it has already. I do not accept that we may be working on related actions plans as a good reason to withhold this document and after waiting 3 weeks without any in-camera discussion or apparent action plan being explained to the Board. I thought that nothing was going on out of sight of the trustees; in this I appear to have been mistaken. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 18:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment

I have to say that I am disappointed that Fæ undertook a unilateral decision to publish this document rather prematurely. The Board's intention was to publish this document along with a response to the points that it raised; unfortunately Fæ chose to not contribute to that response but instead chose to cause problems that resulted in that response being delayed. Personally, this put me in the very uncomfortable position of wanting this document to be made publicly available as soon as possible but having to delete it from this wiki and raise repeated objections to its public release until that response had been assembled. The response has now been written, and will hopefully be released in the next day or so. Mike Peel (talk) 22:06, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

The review is now up again and the response hasn't yet been posted, yet somehow the world doesn't seem to have come to an end... --Tango (talk) 00:36, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

The response should be coming very shortly, and that & this will get more of a launch then. 77.100.80.30 03:53, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I distinctly recall contributing to the discussion about responding to Garfield's report at the recent board meeting, so "Fæ chose to not contribute to that response" seems an odd way describing our meeting. By the way, "unilateral decision" rather ignores the extensive discussion about this action by email on the Board email list. I would be happy to review my multiple in-camera emails about this report and the need for the board to comply with our stated values, and make some or all of those public if this would help.

I pushed for a full vote of the trustees in the board meeting, and releasing this document was supported by all trustees with the agreed deadline of last Tuesday to make this public. The vote is on record in the board minutes Minutes_17Nov12#d84. The discussion was clear and unambiguous. I stated the case fully and forcefully, and that is what the trustees voted on. As has been said before, Wikimedia UK's default position is for openness and transparency. I find it completely ridiculous, bureaucratic and obstructive to the implementation of our stated values, that I have been obliged to push for a formal vote of the trustees to release this audit report so that our members can have the privilege of reading it. There are no changes or corrections due on this report, it was never intended to be in confidence and Wikimedia UK's representatives officially accepted this report by 11th October 2012. It is, as it was released by Garfield on the 10th October 2012, and has been waiting to be made public for six weeks.

A full vote of trustees for every interesting or important document is not a practical solution for openness and is not how I ever imagined Wikimedia UK would choose to implement our stated values.

At the next board meeting, for all future independent audits that are not specifically commissioned to be confidential, along with their associated annexes, reports and findings, I will be strongly recommending that the auditor publishes the report promptly and unless there are outstanding unambiguous factual corrections or legal, commercial or personal privacy issues, then Wikimedia UK's policy should be for open publication, with a copy available on this wiki, within less than 5 working days of receipt. It is perfectly normal for auditors to agree corrective and preventative action as part of the review with the charity's representatives and include this with the audit report, and I recommend that this good audit and assessment practice is encouraged and may avoid a repeat of this type of indefinite and unplanned delay whilst staff and trustees consider our responses, plans, strategies and communications in order to give the best possible frame/spin for the report. --Fæ (talk) 07:59, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh for heaven's sake Mike, how long does it take to prepare a response even if it were needed? It's been 6 weeks since the report was given by Garfield, who as far as I gathered never meant for it to be a private document. The current board need to drop its love for secrecy and remember that we're supposed to be open and transparent where being public is the norm and not the exception! -- KTC (talk) 11:13, 23 November 2012 (UTC)