- Over the year changes have been made to the Wikimedia UK board and its practices in part to develop the management of any potential conflicts of interest or loyalty on the board and between Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation. In your view are any further changes in this regard to Wikimedia UK governance required, and if so what?
- Do you have any other comments to offer to aid the future development of the organisational governance of Wikimedia UK as a charity?
If you wish to respond please email your response to wiki
compassnet.co.uk Your response will be used by Compass Partnership to carry out its independent review of Wikimedia UK's governance on behalf of Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation. Parts of your response may be quoted by Compass Partnership in its report to the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK but would not be attributed to you as an individual. The details you provide will not be used by Compass Partnership for marketing purposes or be shared with any other third party.
Responses
By way of context it should be noted that there had been a range of blog posts including a number on the Wikimedia UK site and that many of these had been critical. The Wikimedia UK board noted this in their statement launching this review.
In the end six replies to the community consultation were received, of which five were substantive. Most of these respondents appeared to have good knowledge of the workings of Wikimedia UK but none were from board members or staff.
In summary, themes that emerged are set out below roughly in the order of the questions asked.
- There was an appreciation of the effort put in to develop the governance of Wikimedia UK and a recognition that procedures are transparent and that systems have been built up and developed as needed. It was noted that this was a particular achievement when people are relatively new to governance.
- There was a concern that the organisation has had to deal with rapid growth and that the board had not established a 'clear transition plan to being a non-executive board' and remained the main driver of programme activity, thus leading to some confusion and some micro managing.
- When asked about how potential conflicts of interest were handled by the board there was a feeling that procedures and policies were in place. While some respondents felt these had been followed, others thought they had not always
