[foundation-board] Draft policy for feedback Re: OKF consultancy policy?

Fri Jun 17 15:16:52 UTC 2011

Dear colleagues

As discussed a while back, I have prepared a draft consultancy policy to cover members of the OKFN paid team who may wish to do consultancy under the OKFN name.

Comments and changes welcome on list or at the following pad:

http://coord.okfnpad.org/consultancy-policy

All the best,
Jason

OKFN Consultancy Policy
===================

This policy governs members of the paid OKFN team (contractors) who may wish to provide consultancy services under the OKFN name.

# Rates

You should charge at a minimum the daily rate OKFN pay you, plus 25% for overhead costs. You will need to add VAT to this. So ensure any quotes are clear as to whether they are inclusive or exclusive of VAT.

# Approval

Before issuing a quote and/or proposal to a potential client you need the approval of the Foundation Coordinator or Chairman of the Board. Approval will ensure there are no potential conflicts of interest, reputational risks or stretches on our resources as a result of the proposed work. It will also ensure pricing is appropriate and sufficient to cover costs.

Quotes and proposal documents should be stored in a Google Docs folder to which the core OKFN team have access.

# Billing

OKFN will invoice clients for you. Please email payments at okfn.org with the details of who and what to invoice. It may take up to 5 days for these requests to be processed, so please submit them in good time.

You will need to invoice the OKFN for your own time spent on consultancy projects. Please itemise this work as a separate line on your monthly invoice. We will generally pay you once the client has paid their invoice to us.

On 26 May 2011, at 19:30, Jonathan Gray wrote:

> Great - thanks for this Jason. Would you be happy to produce something
> more generic for contractors about OKF consultancy.
> 
> Also is it worth drafting a clause to put into people's contracts at
> some point? (No hurry - but next time we revise these we could add
> something in perhaps...)
> 
> J.
> 
> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:55 AM, Jason Kitcat <jason.kitcat at okfn.org> wrote:
>> Hi
>> 
>> On 24 May 2011, at 10:48, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>>>  * Is there an expectancy that they do this with OKF hat? I.e. can
>>> they go off and do things by themselves? I have a mild preference for
>>> encouraging people to do things with OKF hat where possible - but
>>> obviously we want to minimise risk that people will do things with OKF
>>> hat and then not deliver, do something sub-standard, etc.
>> 
>> If people are willing then I think, yes, we can do this through OKF with 15% overhead clawed back into core funds (if not more).
>> 
>> It would need some oversight to manage reputational risks and quality control. I would suggest that I review and sign-off:
>> 
>> * Who the client is
>> * The plan of work & contract
>> 
>>>  * Do we want documentation somewhere about what this involves? Does
>>> the standard overheads rate apply? Could this be worth writing up
>>> quickly so we have some kind of basic policy and some material on how
>>> to do this? (E.g. making a request, expectations, process, etc.)
>> 
>> Yes I think it is worth writing up and I will add this to my list.
>> 
>>> Background: Tim McNamara is potentially going to be consulting for New
>>> Zealand government - we discussed whether or not it would make sense
>>> to do this with OKF hat or not. From my point of view this would be
>>> highly desirable - e.g. for official contact with public bodies, Tim
>>> is great and will represent OKF very well, etc.
>> 
>> Agreed.
>> 
>>> Also it would be useful to have something like this so that e.g. we
>>> know what to do if one of our core developers gets directly approached
>>> to do something related to something they've been doing in the OKF.
>>> 
>>> Jason: this seems like I wonder if you'd be willing to take this on?
>>> As its a contracts / HR / money thing, seems within your remit?
>>> 
>>> Jason: would really love to hear your views on this, qua OKF legal counsel. ;-)
>> 
>> When I was at Sussex Uni they did something similar to try and keep profs from being dragged into running their own consultancy companies. The only problems were the Uni was:
>> 
>> a) Bureaucratic so billing was a nightmare
>> b) They set the scale of fees, which many felt to be too low and inflexible
>> c) The people doing the work didn't see much of the fees!
>> 
>> So as long as we keep things light touch, let people keep most of the fees themselves and the fees are set appropriately I think it's ok for OKF to do this.
>> 
>> All the best,
>> Jason
>> 
>> --
>> Jason Kitcat
>> Foundation Coordinator
>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>> 
>> +44 (0) 7956 886 508
>> 
>> http://www.okfn.org
>> http://twitter.com/jasonkitcat
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jonathan Gray
> 
> Community Coordinator
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://blog.okfn.org
> 
> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> http://identi.ca/jwyg

--
Jason Kitcat
Foundation Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation

+44 (0) 7956 886 508

http://www.okfn.org
http://twitter.com/jasonkitcat