Hi Mike. Most of the discussion on this seems to be happening on-wiki, which is probably
the best place.
See
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Non-board_committees
for anyone who needs the link (Mike, I know you are well aware of it!)
I’ll just pick up one point here. Giving committees fully delegated powers to take
executive action under the direct supervision of the board would not be consistent with
any normal principle of charitable good governance. Not only would it mean that trustees
would once again become operational programme line-managers, which is explicitly what we
do not want to happen, but it would remove whole swathes of the charity’s work from
supervision by the CE. No charity could work effectively within a structure that is
partly managed by the board and partly by the CE.
Michael
On 8 May 2014, at 21:48, Michael Peel <email(a)mikepeel.net> wrote:
Hi all,
It's good to see the role of the WMUK committees being focused on - thank you Michael
for starting this.
However, I think it's a real shame that the committees are becoming much more
advisory than they were supposed to be when they were originally envisaged and created
just a few years ago. The charter here basically gives the committee no powers whatsoever.
Compare it with the proposal I posted in 2012 at:
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/General_Committee_Charter
which was aimed at giving the committees some amount of delegated power to decide what
would or wouldn't happen. Instead, now we're seeing committees that may or may not
be able to give input to staff members (depending on whether staff members decide if they
want to consult the committees or not). The power balance is very much on the side of the
staff, who hold individual viewpoints (which are generally very good and worth listening
to - but they are individual viewpoints) rather than viewpoints balanced across a spectrum
of views (which is what a committee can provide). It's also worth remembering that the
staff were hired to support the community rather than the other way around...
If the priorities could be flipped here, and the committees are given the direct ability
to give recommendations to the WMUK board or to make some level of budget decisions, then
I think it's useful to continue to have the committees. If not, then I would ask why
the committees exist here...
Thanks,
Mike