History of the current governance review process
In response to concerns raised by BERR and our stakeholders, Nominet commissioned an Independent Governance Review which was carried out by Professor Bob Garratt.
All the documents relating to the review are included here for reference:
Letter from BERR - 15 October 2008 (pdf)
This is the original letter from David Hendon at BERR.
Professor Bob Garratt Governance Review (pdf)
This is the report from Professor Garratt, that includes his conclusions and that of the Mutuo study of membership and stakeholder issues.
Review - Comparison with 2006 Combined Code (pdf)
This is Professor Garratt's detailed comparison of Nominet's corporate governance structure and processes with the 2006 Combined Code of Corporate Governance.
This is the study of membership and stakeholder issues led by Mutuo, an organisation that encourages mututal approaches to business and public policy.
Mutuo Parliamentary report (pdf)
This part of the Mutuo review is a view from parliament.
Nominet letter to BERR - 16 April 2009 (pdf)
This is our response letter to David Hendon at BERR.
BERR response letter - 12 May 2009 (pdf)
This is the response letter from David Hendon at BERR.
Shaping the future of .uk - first consultation
This is our first consultation on shaping the future of .uk which ran from 21 May - 21 August 2009.
Shaping the future of .uk - second consultation
This is our second consultation on shaping the future of .uk which ran from 23 November - 15 December 2009.
Chairman's letter to BIS - 26 January 2010
This is the letter from Nominet Chairman, Bob Gilbert, to David Hendon at BIS.
BIS response letter - 2 February 2010
This is the response letter from David Hendon at BIS. EGM Background
EGM documents
Further background material is supplied here as follows:
1. Notice of EGM presenting resolutions, and explanatory notes (pdf)
This is the Notice of EGM, and the Board resolutions. There are four sets of resolutions covering the four issues raised in the Statement of Commitments:
- public purpose
- governance
- pricing
- membership.
The explanatory notes outline the reasoning and rationale behind the proposed resolutions. Again, broken down into the four areas, these are designed to give a clear explanation of what the changes actually mean and why we are proposing them.
The notes (and changes) take account of the feedback received in the initial round of consultations.
2. Revised set of draft articles showing changes (pdf)
How Nominet’s Articles of Association would look after the proposed changes*.
Two colours have been used to show the impact of the different resolutions:
- Pink relates to resolutions 1 and 3 (public purpose and pricing);
- Yellow relates to resolution 2 (governance);
- Resolution 4 (membership) will have no impact on the Articles of Association.
3. Draft Terms of reference for the Nomination Committee (pdf)
Recommendations for appointments to the Board would in future be made by a dedicated Nominations Committee. This document describes how that committee would operate.
4. Draft bye-law for the election of non-executive directors (pdf)
The current election timetable for Board directors has been identified as being too short. As part of the governance changes described in resolution 2, this timetable would be pulled out of the Articles of Association and replaced with this proposed bye-law.
The documents have been drawn up taking into account the feedback to our recent consultation on the future of .uk and the recommendations of the Garratt and Mutuo reviews of Nominet’s corporate governance and stakeholder landscape. We value the inputs that we have received and would like to thank everyone who took the time to respond to our consultation.
* Please note:Changes to the Companies Act 2006 mean that, as from 1 October 2009, the contents of the Company’s Memorandum of Association are considered to be part of the Articles of Association, hence there is no new proposed Memorandum.
Statements of support
See what others are saying - read the comments and statements of support.