2017-04-26 At-Large Review Working Party, ITEMS and MSSI Team Call

MEETING WITH AT-LARGE REVIEW WP, ITEMS, MSSI TEAM

26 April 2017 1800 UTC

ITEMS Opening Statement:

Their report is in response to the ICANN By-laws on issues to be addressed in organisational reviews:

• Is there a continuing purpose for the organisation – ITEMS says yes.
• Are there changes that should be made to improve the organisation’s effectiveness – ITEMS says yes, and proposes their EMM model to address  the issue of how end users can become effectively engaged in ICANN.
• What is the accountability of the organisation to ICANN – ITEMS suggests there are measures that would make At-Large more accountable both to ICANN and to end users.

ITEMS identified 5 overarching issues they see with the current At-Large structure:

• There is a strong perception, widely felt, (even within ALAC) that  there is an unchanging leadership within At Large.
• There are barriers to entry in the membership structure that should be reduced.  Their suggestions include criteria for end user ALAC membership that is identical throughout, creating a level playing field for all end users.
• Outreach and engagement has occurred a great deal but with an emphasis on ATLAS meetings.  Hey are suggesting a more viable and cost effective system of international events, particularly with regional assemblies to obtain more regional perspectives. They emphasised they are NOT calling for an end to ATLAS meetings.
• There is a need for simplification of election processes which are currently  very complex, and a need for more accountability measures.
• At Large is too internally focussed, and there are many working groups that are inactive: without them, the Community would become much more active.

DISCUSSION of Questions raised by the RT-WP with ITEMS, and their responses.

• On questions of weight given the various submissions and interviews, ITEMS said they did not give the same weight to each submission and clearly gave the ALAC and RALOs’ submissions weight
• On their ALS model: ITEMS’ recommendation will be to replace the current system (that requires membership in an ALS to become involved in policy development) to allow individual participation in policy development without required ALAC membership, to expand the range of those who participate in policy development
• On the proposed abolition of the ALAC ALT, ITEMS response is if, in fact, the ALT does not make decisions, then why have it?
• On auction funds: ITEMS confirmed it was their suggestion (not proposed or supported by ALAC) to address lack of resources available to end users.  There is a suggestion this may not be permitted given arrangements on the allocation of the auction funds.
• On the observation that their EMM model assumes a level of homogeneity that is not reflected in the diversity of the At Large community, ITEMS said the EMM proposal is responding to perceptions that it is too complicated for outsiders to participate in the ALAC processes, that the processes are seen as a barrier to engagement and their model seeks to simplify the processes.
• In response to the fact that three of the five RALOs already allow individual membership, ITEMS said they are not trying to get rid of ALSs – recognising the role they play, but to recommend how ALMs can also play a role.  An additional argument was that allowing individual participation in ALAC processes could be difficult to manage with large numbers of individual members and that the ALS structure provides the expertise and structures to manage large numbers of individual members. ITEMS response is that their EMM model allows individual members, but with a process that allows only those who are active participants in the process to move up in the structure, with strictly limited voting rights.  What EMM seeks to do is to expand the small group of active participants slowly.
• On the perception of a leadership that does not change, ITEMS does note the statistics on leadership rotation.  However, it appears that there are still only a small number of people who develop ALAC policy regardless of rotation numbers.  A barrier to more participants in policy development may be that the subject matter of ICANN policy is arcane, in the context of ICANN’s limited mandate.
• On the question of how they believe the abolition of WGs will free up staff time, ITEMS said that, will fewer WGs, less time will be needed to support the processes that WGs require, and the use of social media should not require so much staff time.

ITEMS summation: in summary, while their report looks like criticism, they do recognise all that ALAC has achieved, but they still believe there is a lot that can still be achieved by their reforms.