[Foundation-l] Chapters and replacing the Audit committee

[Michael Snow]

On 8/9/2011 1:43 PM, WereSpielChequers wrote:
> One possible way to decentralise whilst maintaining or even improving
> fiscal accountability would be to replace the Audit committee with a
> group audit committee. I'm familiar with this model here in the UK in
> our not for profit housing sector - basically multiple organisations
> in the same group are audited by the same committee. To keep the
> committee to a manageable size you  wouldn't have every chapter on it
> every year, and you would probably continue to have independents as
> now. But I would hope you'd avoid having a majority from any one
> continent let alone one country. Also as a matter of good governance
> there should be a separation of powers - none of our treasurers should
> serve on it without at least a break of a year since serving as a
> treasurer.
If you're talking about overseeing a financial audit process, I doubt 
that a group audit committee would be at all efficient, because of the 
need to comply with requirements that vary in detail from one 
jurisdiction to the next. If you're talking about an audit committee to 
monitor risk factors more generally, then the existing audit committee 
already takes it as being part of its mandate to study risks for the 
movement as a whole. For example, see 
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Top_risks_2009

As to the idea of decentralization, I'm having trouble seeing why this 
suggestion would be the place to start. I don't know if it's a 
meaningful difference in function, so I'm skeptical as to what the 
proposal would accomplish.

--Michael Snow