Proposal:Contracting

This page is a proposal approved by the committee.  The proposal was moved by John Vandenberg and seconded by Craig Franklin. If you are not a member of the organisation, you may request an account on this wiki using special:RequestAccount, and discuss this proposal on the discussion page.

Due to regularly fluctuating income, Wikimedia Australia has decided to not focus on employing staff fulltime. Instead it will implement a human resourcing approach that allows outsourcing of administrative tasks, is flexible enough to provide access to highly skilled tasks, and builds capacity by engaging our community as paid consultants at a fixed cost model.

Panel of Preferred Suppliers

The Wikimedia Australia committee of management will establish a panel of preferred suppliers for the provision of services that cannot reasonably be provided by volunteers. The panel will consist of suppliers of goods and services who will become the preferred suppliers for a particular class of goods or services. Suppliers may be individuals with an ABN, whether associated with the Wikimedia movement or not, as well as companies and other organisations.

Businesses that are owned by, managed by, or employ members of the management committee must not be included on the panel.

Reporting

Companies or individuals listed on the panel of preferred suppliers should be listed publically on the chapter’s website, including:

• The registered name of the business
• The business’ ABN (where the business is in Australia)
• The classes of goods or services for which the business has been deemed the preferred supplier
• What links (if any) the supplier has to Wikimedia Australia and the Wikimedia movement

For instance, if a business is selected to be the preferred supplier of web hosting, their business name and ABN would be listed, as would the class of service for which they are the preferred supplier (“web hosting”). If the owner of the business was also a member of Wikimedia Australia, this would also be stated.

Criteria for listing

The following criteria must be considered when listing suppliers on the panel:

• The cost and value of any goods or services supplied by the supplier;
• The quality of goods and services offered by the supplier;
• Any special arrangements or discounts that can be arranged in return for obtaining an exclusive right to supply services of a particular type to the chapter;
• Whether the supplier is based in Australia and registered for GST (foreign businesses and local businesses not registered for GST should only be listed in exceptional circumstances), and;
• The fit of the supplier’s values with our values of openness and freedom

Units of work

Each unit of work to be allocated is to be described on the WMAu public website, with a fixed cost associated with it.

The Wikimedia Australia committee of management will approve units of work, after which the procurement committee will be responsible for determining which contractor can fulfil and should be allocated the unit of work.

When a unit of work is allocated to a contractor, the identifier of the selected contractor will be placed on the public page describing the unit of work.

Units of work should only be approved by the management committee and sent to the procurement subcommittee in the following situations:

• In situations where jobs must be done, for instance, to meet the requirements of a partnership agreement signed with a third party.
• In situations where in the opinion of the management committee, no volunteer is available to do the job to the required level of accuracy and availability.

A unit of work must not consist solely of the generation of content for inclusion on Wikimedia projects.

Procurement Subcommittee

Duties

The subcommittee will be responsible for:

• Adding and removing suppliers from the panel of preferred suppliers
• Allocating units of work to individual suppliers on the panel
• Where no preferred supplier exists on the panel of preferred suppliers for a particular unit of work, identifying a supplier in the marketplace who can perform that work
• Reviewing the quality and completeness of goods or services provided after a unit of work is completed.

Composition

The subcommittee will be chaired by the Treasurer, and consist of between two and four other members appointed by the management committee, at least half of whom should not themselves be members of the management committee.

Members of the procurement subcommittee are not term-limited and serve until their resignation or replacement by the management committee. Membership of the subcommittee, except for the Treasurer, persists through annual general meetings.

Members of the management committee who are not members of the subcommittee may observe meetings of the subcommittee. The chair may, at their discretion, allow other observers to attend and speak (but not vote) at subcommittee meetings, including representatives of businesses on the panel of preferred suppliers.

Meetings

The procurement subcommittee should meet at least quarterly, with additional meetings called as required by the Treasurer. Meetings should be announced to all members of the subcommittee and management committee in accordance with Rule 26.

Meetings may occur in person, or via teleconferencing or internet conferencing using any technology acceptable to the subcommittee (Google Hangout, IRC, telephone conferencing, etc).

Where practicable, minutes of subcommittee meetings should be tabled at the next meeting of the management committee. Any aspect of meetings not provided for in this policy will be determined at the discretion of the chair.

Recourse to Management Committee

The Treasurer may refer any decision of the procurement subcommittee to the management committee. The management committee may by motion overturn any decision made by the procurement subcommittee.