Please find below the guidelines for an issues report adopted by the GNSO Council. This will I hope aid the committee - and the community - in the process of raising the issues at hand with the GNSO. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Glen De Saint Géry <glen@icann.org> Date: 28-Mar-2007 16:29 Subject: Issues reports To: Nick Ashton-Hart <nick.ashton-hart@icann.org> Nick Here we are: http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-gnso-19feb04.shtml Item 6: Expectations on ICANN staff manager for GNSO policy support - guidelines for producing issues report - preliminary reports - timelines for deliverables - reporting structure Item Philip Sheppard commented that some guidance was given in the ICANN bylaws on the policy development process but that the expectations in the content were missing and referred to the following set of guidelines he had drawn up and welcomed by ICANN General Counsel: Proposed guidelines for the ICANN staff manager's issue report - Background The staff manager's issue report is the precursor to the GNSO policy development process (PDP). The PDP is relatively new and there has been a high degree of variation in the quality, length and usefulness of the issues reports so far. This is not surprising since Council and staff are still developing procedures. Therefore, Council proposes guidelines to provide structure for future staff manager issue reports. The goal is to ensure that the materials are directly useful to the work of the Council. Objective An issue report has three objectives: - Relevance: to confirm an issue is within ICANN's mission, - Description: to explain what the issue is, who it affects, what support there is to address the issue, - Recommendation: to recommend whether or not the GNSO should start a PDP. The by-laws lay down a structure as to how the above objectives may be met. http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#AnnexA What SHOULD NOT be in the issues report The report has a short time frame (15 calendar days). This tells us that it is NOT intended to contain: - options for solutions, - options for how the Council may proceed, - responses to a formal consultation of constituencies (this comes later if the PDP goes ahead), - nor should it be necessary to supplement it with documents such as FAQs. What SHOULD the issues report look like? It should be the primary document needed for the Council to make a decision whether to proceed or not with a PDP. It should include links to existing documents that provide directly relevant background. The report must be clear in its recommendation to Council. Past reports have not had this clarity and the GNSO chairman has been obliged to draft terms of reference for a Council WG in an attempt to provide such clarity. It would be more appropriate if the report itself proposed such terms of reference (recognising that Council may choose to modify them). Therefore all future issues reports should contain: - proposed terms of reference for a Council working group drafted in a practical and manageable way and reflecting a possible priority of sub-issues. The length of an issues report will be guided by the topic. Some issues reports may be very short; others may be lengthier but none need be long. Summary of guidelines The issue report should: 1. Describe an issue but NOT explore options. 2. Provide directly relevant background and links. 3. Recommend whether to proceed or not. 4. Propose terms of reference for a Council WG. 5. Be provided to Council within the 15 day time frame laid out in the by-laws. Bruce Tonkin commented that the object of the issues report was to identify the issues and establish the terms of reference. As far as the constituency statements were concerned, it was a question of having the right amount of detail for the Staff to work on. Barbara Roseman welcomed having guidelines on the issues report and made the distinction between an issues report requested from the Board and one requested from the GNSO Council. The concern was to not to over summarize for fear of being misinterpreted. Marilyn Cade mentioned that there were tools available for making summaries and that the importance of ICANN staff in the process was the neutrality aspect in providing structural support. In addition she urged that the GNSO secretariat and Barbara Roseman document the timelines. In addition there should be cognition that some of the deliverables may not be achievable as there is no base of extensive knowledge to work from. Grant Forsyth proposed: - a diagram of each process, - the time frames each constituency proposed for each process - where the decision point would be in each process Bruce Tonkin dropped off the call momentarily. Alejandro Pisanty joined the call at 8:55 Philip Sheppard took over the chair in the absence of Bruce Tonkin. Philip Sheppard moved for the adoption of the Proposed guidelines for the ICANN staff manager's issue report, seconded by Ross Rader. Resolution carried unanimously, 26/27 votes, 1 absent. -- -- Regards, Nick Ashton-Hart PO Box 32160 London N4 2XY United Kingdom UK Tel: +44 (20) 8800-1011 USA Tel: +1 (202) 657-5460 Fax: +44 (20) 7681-3135 mobile: +44 (7774) 932798 Win IM: ashtonhart@hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart@mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart Online Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart