Today Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation are announcing the appointment of Compass Partnership to produce the review and report on the governance of Wikimedia UK. The governance review was announced on September 28, 2012 in a joint statement by Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation. The legal teams at Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation made suggestions for potential parties to conduct the review. A shortlist of two was drawn up, from which Compass Partnership was jointly selected.
The review will be led by Mike Hudson who is an independent specialist consultant with an outstanding reputation in the UK charitable sector. Mike will work with Keith Smith, who also has decades of experience as a manager, trustee and consultant in the sector, together with a research assistant.
The review will establish a full account of the recent events related to QRpedia, Monmouthpedia, Gibraltarpedia and related conflicts of interest. It will also aim to answer specific questions that arise on these topics. The review will also consider Wikimedia UK’s current governance arrangements, including internal policies such as the Trustee Code of Conduct, Conflicts of interest policy, Representing Wikimedia UK policy, and any other relevant policies of Wikimedia UK, in the light of external requirements and guidance and best ethical practices. These will include the Charity Commission guidance on Conflicts of interest for charity trustees, and the Nolan Committee Principles.
The review will involve conducting interviews with current and former trustees, staff and some key stakeholders. Compass Partnership will consider as part of the review such community views and information on the governance of Wikimedia UK as they deem appropriate. Such views should be restricted to matters directly related to the governance of Wikimedia UK as a UK Registered Charity, and the scope of the review does not include matters governed by the Wikimedia community on the Wikimedia projects.
Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation are confident that the review will bring Wikimedia UK to a stronger position. The results of this review will, of course, be made publicly available. A review of this size will necessarily take some time to complete, and some changes are likely to be made in the interim period. We anticipate the review will be published by January 31st 2013, and in any event by 15 February 2013. You can view the terms of reference for the review here.
If we are Wikipedia, why there is no Wikipedian involved, like an arbiter? Especially as all conflicts of interest include editing Wikipedia?