Finance and Resources Committee

Finance and Resources Committee
(a new Standing Committee of the Executive Council, agreed to by resolution of the ICOM General Assembly at Barcelona, July 2001)

The Finance and Resources Committee, with a fixed life and renewable mandate triennially, will operate in parallel to the long-standing ICOM Ethics Committee (with similar terms of appointment), and also parallel to the new Legal Affairs and Properties Committee.

Composition of the committee (9 members)
The committee should include, ex officio, the President, Treasurer ¹ , and Secretary-General of ICOM. It should include one other member of Council and be chaired (as with the Ethics Committee) by an experienced ICOM person drawn from outside the membership of the Council itself - so that the advice rendered through this committee will be guided by depth of professional experience and expert knowledge intellectually and professionally. However such advice should also be directed to augmenting Council's grasp of specific issues of evolving importance, and assist Council in taking decisions and actions in accordance with its responsibilities of governance.

The committee will report to and operate under the authority of the Executive Council. However it should seek appropriate expertise - having in mind the special tasks of the committee - beyond the Executive Council, incorporating skills and experience drawn more broadly from the Advisory Committee and the wider membership of ICOM. Special expertise in the financial sector, cultural sector fundraising and international program development assisting museums may be sought, as this might benefit ICOM and its commitment to the professional work of museums and museum personnel, and ongoing care and protection of the world's cultural heritage.

The committee should be well equipped with experienced persons who could assist ICOM in advancing its knowledge, expertise, and capacity for informed action in the management of its financial and other resources.

Mandate
The committee's work should be in concert with ICOM's mission, objectives, and interests in increasingly complex financial and other resource matters affecting museums and museum professionals' life.

Beyond the sphere of day-to-day operational matters that are the responsibility of the Secretariat, this committee will:

1. examine and advise the Council (and thereby also the Advisory Committee) on broad issues concerning ICOM's oversight and development of its financial, human and technical resources as a whole, taking a long-term view across a triennium rather than within single fiscal-year periods;
2. examine and advise the Council on the role and potential of the ICOM Foundation, as a body and instrument to assist ICOM financially in diverse ways ² ;
3. seek reports and advice from the task forces on National and International Committees (NCTF and ICTF) to assist Council's clear understanding of the Committees' functioning, giving attention to comparative issues of current concern or future potential in terms of finances and resources allocation;
4. advise ICOM on ways of differentiating some of its funding allocations on a more prioritised basis, to assist new developments and increased capacities within the organisation as a whole, according to its mission, principal objectives, strategic development and evolving programs;
5. examine and advise on ICOM's publishing potential in partnership with appropriate expertise from other parts of the organisation (Secretariat, EC and AC), to consider how ICOM is realising and projecting its greatest repository of unquantifiable resources - its collective intellectual expertise as a museum-based cultural organisation ³ . ICOM's imprint should, ideally, be a high-recognition publishing logo known all over the world, and itself a valuable "property" to ICOM.

For background on the creation and rationale of this committee, refer to Section XIII ['FINANCIAL ISSUES'] of the "Tool Box Report" on ICOM reform (May 2000) - circulated to all EC and AC members for formal discussion at meetings in Paris, June 2000.

Notes:

1. In order to distinguish its broad orientation on behalf of the Executive Council, it is advisable that this Committee would not be chaired by the ICOM Treasurer (whose primary role would continue to be monitoring the fiscal accountability of ICOM's operations currently within the Executive Council itself). Instead, this new committee should be chaired by a separate person, with the appropriate skills and mandate to focus not on current financial operational matters but rather ICOM's wider potential and future in terms of comprehensive resources development according to the organisation's mission and objectives.

2. The fact that the ICOM Foundation is headquartered in Switzerland gives it the potential to act in parallel to ICOM as a body headquartered in France, but with some additional scope to exercise under the authority of Swiss law.

3. There is a potential crossover here with the work of the Legal Affairs and Properties Committee, and some liaison, or perhaps even occasional joint-session meetings, should be pursued. Other matters of common interest may arise similarly that deserve consultation and liaison with the Ethics Committee, and an integrated view of such connections and common concerns would be of value in the advice rendered to both the Executive Council and the Advisory Committee of ICOM.