Print

---

Dear Derek

Thank you for your letter asking me to submit my views to Cilip's Review of Governance.  What I have set out below are my own personal opinions, incubated over many years' service on the LA and Cilip councils and on the boards of both bodies.  In the interests of openness and in the hope of promoting a useful and informed debate I am copying this to both the council list and to the thousand members of lis-cilip.

I strongly supported the setting up of this review and was delighted when you agreed to act as chair.  Speaking (in this sentence only) as chair of council, I hope that you and your colleagues will take this opportunity to respond to the urgency of Cilip's difficulties by bringing to the December council meeting far-reaching and radical proposals - and that council will consider them thoughtfully and have the resolve to drive through a revolution by consent.

Yours sincerely

Tony McSeán
Director of Library Relations, Elsevier
& chair of Cilip Council

Why Don't Council and Executive Board Work Properly?

In the Bye-Laws:
The bye-laws charge Council with "the management of the affairs of the Institute".  Council is further charged with appointing an Executive Board "which shall report to Council on matters affecting general policy, legal and parliamentary business, on developments proposed in the work of the Institute and on business not assigned to any other standing committees, and shall act on behalf of the council, in an executive capacity, in matters of urgency".

Structural Problems With Council

The structure and operations of Council do not allow it to do justice to the role assigned it in the bye laws:

1.  Meetings:  Council normally meets only three times a year.  These meetings are not held at times significant to the management of CILIP, particularly the financial management.  There is no mechanism to provide councillors with management or financial information or reports on a regular, routine basis.  With such reports councillors would be equipped to ask questions and develop a fuller understanding of the progress of Cilip, notably the secretariat, in relation to defined goals.  There is currently no use made of closed lists or equivalent technologies to canvass council opinion or spark discussion in the long gaps between meetings.

2.  Minutes:  Council minutes have not until now been cast in a form which makes easy the identification and monitoring of action points.  Board minutes are not distributed to councillors other than in the main pack before meetings.

3.  Size:  Council is too big.  It is unwieldy in discussion and participation of individual councillors in meetings is uneven and in some cases non-existent.

4.  Composition:  Most councillors represent branches and groups.  In many cases there is significantly less commitment to Cilip than to their own constituency, little recognition of their obligation as councillors towards Cilip.  This is a structural problem not a collective or individual failing - when I was HLG's councillor it was true of me too.  The dominance of sectional representation gives a built-in conservatism to council, and the comparative lack of interest in Cilip affairs per se tend to dilute scrutiny of proposals and to concentrate effective power in board and secretariat hands.

5.  Papers:  Council papers are sent out only a short time before meetings, and papers on important matters are too often tabled.  The papers tend to lack financial rigour, and there is a lack of accountability for the results of accepting and implementing proposals.

6.  Trusteeship:  Most councillors fail to appreciate their roles, responsibilities and liabilities as trustees

7.  Communication with members:  Cilip does too little to inform members of council business.  Other than the President's diary here are no regular contributions in Update or Gazette from the hon officers, and little information from members to members about what the current issues are and what is happening.

Operations

The relationship in practice between council and board bears no relationship to that set out in the bye-laws.  Because of the paucity and irregularity of council meetings, Cilip is effectively run by the board with in practice little accountability. 

The nub of the problem is that important decisions are taken by the board and only conveyed to councillors via paragraphs in the board minutes, distributed in the circulation of the council papers a couple of weeks before meetings.  These minutes are taken late in the council meeting, when time pressures, fatigue and a consciousness of train departure times mitigates against proper deliberation.

Changes

1. Council should be reduced to c15 members, elected nationally and charged with managing Cilip activity and closely monitoring the work of the secretariat.  Reimbursement to employers should be considered, to make sure the councillors have enough time to be thorough.
2. Abolition of the board as it now stands.
3. Council meetings monthly, supported by proper management information from the secretariat.
4. Widespread use of ICT for discussions and decisions between meetings and for replacement of many face-to-face meetings at all levels within Cilip.
5. Effective and transparent accountability of the secretariat to the trustees.
6. Proper definition of the complementary roles of council and CE, and proper accountability on the part of the CE for the performance of the secretariat and Cilip as a whole.
7. An entirely new arrangement for the tying in of branches and groups to the overall life of Cilip, emphasising their primacy in the minds of most Cilip activists. Branches and groups are Cilip's most effective means of attracting and keeping membership.
   
   

The Challenge

In my view, we have to work towards a 30% reduction in Cilip's current operating budget in order to:

1. Balance income and total expenditure.
2. Rebuild the reserves to the agreed level
3. Reintroduce the adequate contingency allowances essential for an organization of Cilip's scale
4. Fund an adequate rebuilding of press office and advocacy activities, which in my view are a glaring and intolerable gap in Cilip's current activities.
   

Achieving this will be horrible.  Everyone who cares about Cilip will see something they really value discontinued, cut back or devolved down to groups and branches for them to sustain as best they can.  At Cilip HQ there will need to be significant restructuring, renegotiating of terms and conditions, and redundancies. 

Membership organizations are very bad at this sort of thing, particularly those like Cilip where the membership has decent, liberal instincts.  Normally, radical change has to wait for truly catastrophic events and then is rushed, ugly and distinctly suboptimal long-term.  (Most of us are familiar with emergency recruitment freezes whose effect is that the best staff move on and the average and worse stay cheerfully in post.)  To achieve what is needed we must have a strong and committed group of trustees (ie councillors) working within a structure that encourages meaningful debate and effective leadership.

This message has been scanned for viruses at Business Link for London.