2021-12-15 Standing Committee on ICANNs Budget & Operations Planning #01

Notes/ Action Items

Links to Relevant Documents:

• FY23 Draft Budget and Operating Plan Public Comment
• FY23 Webinar Recordings
• FY22 GNSO Council submission
• GNSO's FY23 Activity Forecast (attached)

Roll Call & SOI Updates

• None 

Welcome & Chair updates

• FY23-27 Ops and Financial Plan published: https://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/proceeding/draft-fy23-27-operating-and-financial-plan-and-draft-fy23-operating-plan-and-budget-15-09-2021
• Recommends attending one of the webinars:https://icann-community.atlassian.net/wiki/display/projfinadhocws/FY23+Operating+Plan+and+Budget+Webinars

Recap of FY22 Council Response

• Council comments are being evaluated from when they are being made and how they are taken into account. And how they evolve year over year.
• Reminder that the response must focus on the GNSO Council’s remit (gTLD policy development). Other comments more relevant to SG/Cs should be made by those parties instead. Ok to bring the issue up on the SCBO calls and the group can help determine relevance together.
  • Further to the point about non-Council relevant discussion, the SCBO can serve as a funnel for questions to ICANN org finance staff (7 Jan date for such questions).
  • After the clarifying question period, that is when the SCBO will focus intently on the Council’s remit for comment.
• One particular point discussed is that in prior years, the budget allocated to each SO/AC was included, but was missing in FY22.
• Question: Does the financial plan take into account increasing hardware costs from implementing policies (particularly around IANA). Question relates to potential supply chain issues.
• Highlighted operating issue 1, maintaining adequate staffing for policy development support. The comment went so far as to request FTE/contractor count over the next 5 years. The growth should be proportional to increase in workload. This is an issue being tracked, like the following items.
• Issue 2, collab between Council and policy development support team, especially focusing on project mgmt. and prioritization. The SCBO might be asked to help manage the program and project mgmt. toolkit.
• Issue 3, examine benefit of F2F meetings.
• Issue 4, supports WG chairs with effective tools and support (staff, software, advice from legal/consultants, facilitators, data/research).
• Issue 5, include line item for planning and PM oversight.
• Budget issue 1, PDP 3.0 should be individually captured, to ensure they are properly funded.
• Issue 2, line items to ensure adequate staffing
• Issue 3, policy research
• Issue 4, criteria for constituency travel
• Issue 5, contingencies section for FY21 – request clarification for 4% number.
• Issue 6, $5.5M, factors for determining adequate amount.

Overview of FY23 Draft Documents

• Operating & Financial Plans for 5 year and 1 year is the master document
• Most relevant to GNSO Council, though encouraged to review entire document
• For 5 year operating plan
  • Evolve and strengthen MSM model
    • Evolve and strengthen decision-making processes for efficient and efficient policy-making
• For 1 year operating plan
  • Same two operating initiatives, but now able to see the specific activities. More tactical level.
• For 1 year functional activities (i.e., to keep the lights on)
  • Policy Development & Implementation Support – includes breakdown of areas of focus (e.g., policy development, implementation, etc.) and relevant activities. Also includes information about progress tracking.
    • Might be useful to review FY22 section for the sake of comparison. Looks to be about $1M higher in FY23.
    • Appendix A is the 5 year rolling roadmap
    • Appendix B maps Strategic Objectives against Operating Initiatives
    • Appendix C, provides data about cross-community WGs and Specific Reviews. Highlights scope and breadth of work and is related to prioritization work in Planning Team.
• FY23 Budget is broken out and separate document. Looks similar to past documents.
  • Suggestion to review Expenses by Service Group and Functional Activity, which helps illustrate deltas. Link to an Excel sheet available which drills into sub-Functional areas for 5 major functional activities.

Overview of GNSO Activity Forecast for FY23

• Will share a Council specific snapshot from the portfolio management tool, showing the upcoming FY, and what work will continue or initiate. Also shows whether the Council is the owner or a contributor.
  • Green represents in flight and purple are planned activities.
• Question: Is it possible to know which projects are new? As an example, SubPro ODP has a predecessor, so is not new. What represents a completely new project? Answer: Helpful to review the full program mgmt tool, not just the snapshot.

Next steps & closing

• Next meeting 22 December 2021
• Schedule included to help ensure the group meets deadlines.

Action Item: John will send note to identify members to review specific issues.