See below... On 05/05/07, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
Hello Nick,
Thanks for your working to help me through this. :-)
My pleasure - I hope it is actually helpful!
The RALOS and the ALAC are, combined, the At-Large community. ICANN has staff, and a budget line, to provide services and support as a secretariat basically to the community as a whole. OK, then. Do ALAC and the RALOs have any specific say over the allocation of these budgets?
To a large extent, the budget is driven off of their input and spent directly on them. For example: the majority of the At-Large budget which is discretionary (not salary or overhead) is T&E costs for ALAC members and regional ALS representatives to attend ICANN meetings. Of the rest, much is spent on things like translation of documents, hosted servers, icannalac.org maintenance, and the like. There is some money which is fungible and the process I provided to you allows the community to ask for the funds to be used in specific ways. The process is itself new - only since last November - but in all but one case the requests have been granted so far, and that case is still under review. It would be the exception if a properly-supported request were denied.
Do ALAC and the RALOs -- jointly or separately -- have any specific authority to determine - how much funds exist to serve the at-large community - the budgets that determine how these funds are spent
By participating in the budgeting cycle, sure. For example, I proposed, and it was widely seen as useful, that this coming year a full-time member of staff should be hired who would do nothing but provide support to the RALOs. If the RALOs have projects in mind, they should work with us to ensure that these get put into the budget - it is MUCH easier to get those higher-up to allocate money to us if the community is asking for something than if I am asking for something nobody has asked for but which I think will be useful.
Each RALO may define most aspects of its structure and operation as it pleases. I understand this -- but it makes life much easier if I have an idea of what resources are available to our RALO, and our ability to direct staff to utilize such resources.
A RALO cannot directly supervise staff people, because the staff are employed by ICANN, so ICANN has a fiduciary responsibility to manage them. That said, we take serving the community seriously and responding to their needs is expressly part of our job description.
(I suppose it actually helps to _have_ a formal RALO first...) :-)
It does, yes.
The thing to remember is that the funds of ICANN are ICANN's funds, and good organisational governance requires that staff exercise ultimate control over the expenditures of the organisation. ICANN's directors have actual legal liability in certain circumstances if funds of the organisation were not administered properly, so this will always mean that staff exercise ultimate control over spending money.
I've been in enough non-profit and for-profit organizations to understand fiscal prudence, and I would surmise that most of my colleagues here do as well. If, as John has suggested, staff's "ultimate control" extends to the rejection of a RALO's request for a specific person or travel allocation (for which budget funds are available), then this is unacceptable interference.
I am not actually familiar with the example John is mentioning (at least I cannot recall anything that fits this scenario). For example, every meeting I've supervised travel support for has provided the opportunity for all ALSes in a region, plus all candidate ALSes, to send a delegate on ICANN's dime. The ALSes can choose whomever they wish to be the designated person; we have no role in that.
Outside of "we've already spent the allocated funds" or "doing this would get us sued" or "this is outside the ICANN mandate", there is _no_ reason for ICANN staff to reject a procedurally-correct request from _any_ of its contituent advisory bodies. And even issues of "what is within the mandate" can be contentious -- some leeway should be allowed.
On the surface that sounds great. But when you get to specific examples it could sound not-so-great. For example, we have an obligation to be even-handed in providing services and funding to all the regions equally. If we were in a position to have to agree to every proposal that was good which was put forward, that would mean we would likely give very uneven support, financial and otherwise.
In your response to Jean you said:
ICANN's At-Large staff and infrastructure is not inclusive of ALAC or RALOS or anyone else: ICANN's At-Large staff is the staff, and that is all. OK -- but who directs them? In whose interests do they serve? Do At-Large staff serve the At-Large community, or just some bureacratic assumption, on the behalf of the at-large community but without its direct participation?
ICANN's staff are directed by their supervisors, up to the CEO, who is answerable to the board - hence we are all indirectly answerable to the board. That said, my entire job is to serve the community. If I were perceived to be very bad at doing that, I'd get replaced.
Of course, the decision to make the RALO process had to come from somewhere external to the At-Large structures it was designed to attract. But at a certain point, the RALOs and ALAC should be trusted to be able to direct the resources allocated to the service of their constituencies. The only limits on that direction should be legal exposure, fiscal prudence, and alignment with ICANN's mandate and bylaws.
Nick, I don't know you or ICANN staff, but it's been my experience with most organizations that staff is resistent to change, all that differs is in the level of resistance. There is a delicate balance between the need for continuity and the need to adapt to meet the evolving needs of stakeholders. It's vital that safeguards exist -- if the advisory process is to work properly and effectively -- to ensure that staff oversight does not inhibit creativity or flexibility, while being sufficient to ensure maintenance of the mandate and sane use of resources.
All people are resistant to change to one degree or another so we agree there. As to the delicate balance, there definitely is one; all secretariats of international organisations are in a difficult spot there and ICANN is no different. There is no magic model or framework that will ensure the balance is kept; we all have a part to play in ensuring that. I and my colleagues can only do the best we can, and listen closely to our various constituencies. I know with At-Large that I will hear very quickly if I get the balance wrong. I personally wouldn't have it any other way. FYI, I'm pretty change-friendly myself. I know it is inevitable and a part of every day of life, so why fear it? It is like fearing death, or sunrise. I've been often accused as a change agent.
What policies currently exist to describe the limits of ICANN staff ability to overrule its advisory bodies? If, indeed, staff authority is _absolute_, I find this worrisome since it goes against the most basic principles of good corporate governance. At a macro level the stakeholders must instruct the staff, not vice versa.
The above is a very long subject which I couldn't hope to comprehensively address; I know there are many others with many opinions, and longer experience with ICANN, who can give better answers than I can.
They don't have the ability to reject ALAC's mandate - but see above vis a vis spending money. It's critical, then, that there are known budgets ahead of time so that money is not arbitrarily added or taken away, to fund pet projects or deny funding to contentious ones. We can't spend money we don't have -- so let's know how much we have to work with. That way, we can determine the bounds and allocate appropriately. Without a budget, everything is arbitrary and _any_ request can be met with "we don't have the funds for that".
The budgets of ICANN are very public, and subject to public consultation in their draft form. I will shortly be producing a version of the budget for At-Large in the current draft form for all of you to look at (I just need to take out all the staff costs and the like for privacy reasons). The entire company budget is about to get reviewed for the upcoming FY.
Hopefully things are clearer now :) Yes, to the extent of answering some questions while raising many others :-).
Don't mind Q&A at all. Beats a number of other kinds of email exchanges one could be having for sure.
- Evan
-- -- 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