Nick Poole, CILIP Council member and former Tresurer, has made the assertion at Public Libraries News that CILIP’s Governance Review, on which we vote at Saturday’s AGM, was conducted ‘in plain sight’.
Not so. I have commented as follows, ‘I am afraid that Nick Poole is simply wrong when he says that the discussions on the Governance Review were carried out ‘in plain sight’. The review began in 2012. The minutes of the March 2013 Council meeting state, ‘C2013/05 Governance Review Report Council discussed and agreed proposals from the GovernanceReview Board’. Intrigued by this, on 11 July 2013 I wrote to ask when the proposals would be in the public domain. The Chair of Council replied to say that they would be available in October of that year. By the time I attended my first Council meeting in January 2014, they were still not public. The discussion on them at that meeting took place in camera, and my proposal that the discussion be moved to open session was defeated, finding no support from any of my fellow councillors. The subsequent consultation was perfunctory. I know, I was a part of it.At my last Council meeting, members defended this secrecy, claiming that they would not have been able to talk freely if the review had been conducted openly. I fear I cannot see why members elected to office in a membership organisation by their peers should be scared of openness.'
The same post conveys the news that the site’s tireless author Ian Anstice has resigned from CILIP. I very much regret this; Ian has done more for the profession than many a card-carryng CILIP member. I hope, if we can maintain the democracy of our professional association, we will be able to welcome him, and many others, back.