This post is part of a research-action initiative by the Digital Society Program of the French Agency for Territorial Cohesion (ANCT) to explore the relevance and use of Sociétés Coopératives d'Intérêt Collectif (SCICs) to support digital commons initiated or joined by a public player. In particular, the aim is to outline the advantages of these structures for organizing communities around the production and maintenance of digital commons, but also to identify the various limitations encountered by players in the field in order to propose possible solutions.

A two-stage methodology was used, based on bibliographical research and various interviews and workshops, to identify the "irritants" (in the sense of anything that might slow down or block the creation of such SCICs in a commons context) on the one hand, and to formalize possible solutions on the other.

This two-stage approach enabled us to identify two major irritants, through interviews with holders of common interests structured as SCICs, and during a workshop attended by all of them:

• public players' lack of familiarity with SCIC law, which is addressed in this post;
• the difficulty of clearly defining the common project and the cooperative's purpose in its articles of association, which will be the subject of a second post.

During the workshop, it was decided to break down each irritant into issues, and to sketch out recommendations to address each of these issues. The recommendations were then backed up by various pre-existing resources, to which this study refers whenever necessary:

• the important educational work and tools developed under the direction of the Confédération Générale des SCOP (CGSCOP);
• resources produced by the Réseau des collectivités Territoriales pour une Économie Solidaire (RTES) to facilitate the use of SCICs by public players:
  
  • frequently asked legal questions ;
  • The " SCIC and local authorities " reference point;
• resources developed by ANCT on the digital commons.

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Les Communs Numériques : un modèle innovant de développement des ressources numériques

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• Commons

The need for public-sector players to become acculturated to the legal regime of this cooperative form is the main issue to emerge from both the interviews and the workshop conducted with established SCICs. Experienced by some of the players interviewed, this lack of acculturation is all the more dangerous in that it can derail the structuring project even before the SCIC is created.

The need for public-sector players to become acculturated is twofold: in terms of their participation in SCICs, and in terms of the digital commons held by such structures.

A. Developing a knowledge base from existing data

Issues

It emerged from the interviews and workshop that the lack of familiarity with the SCIC legal system among public-sector players is partly due to the absence of official doctrines or guides.

A quick search reveals a wide range of resources that can be mobilized by public players to better understand SCIC law:

• the FAQ " SCICs and local authorities " produced by RTES, which answers practical questions about setting up an SCIC;
• Points de RepèrESS " SCICsand local authorities ", which includes testimonials and feedback on the role of local authorities in the development of SCICs;
• the " Accounting by the local authority of its stake in the capital of an SCIC " fact sheet
• the CGSCOP's 2022 activity report, which takes stock of the SCIC movement, demonstrating the wide range of applications that these structures can have - particularly for the public sector.

Recommendation

The sheer number of these resources testifies to the liveliness of the movement to promote SCICs among local authorities and public players in general; but this density of information can also be a barrier to entry for these players. It would therefore be appropriate to group these resources together in a directory administered by an authority with expertise recognized by public players - ANCT, for example - in order to centralize them and attest to their quality.

B. Enhancing the knowledge base

1. Compile existing statuses

Issues

Public-sector players, and more broadly all digital commons creators wishing to set up a SCIC, could usefully benefit from a model set of articles of association, along the lines of the model GIP constitutive agreement proposed by the Legal Affairs Department. However, the diversity of arrangements permitted by the 2001 law seems difficult to compile in a single model bylaws. In fact, SCICs differ from GIPs in two respects:

• SCICs can be set up on the basis of three "classic" commercial companies: the Société Anonyme (SA), the Société À Responsabilité Limitée (SARL) and the Société par Actions Simplifiée (SAS), each of which can be adapted in accordance with its articles of association, particularly with regard to voting procedures and the composition of management bodies;
• The legal status of SCICs gives cooperative members a great deal of freedom in the drafting of their articles of association, and thus in the organization of the structure. Within an SCIC, it is possible to organize the General Meeting by creating up to 7 colleges of members; but also to decide that all colleges have one vote; or conversely that each college has a number of votes proportional to its size within the cooperative, etc.

Recommendation

It would therefore seem more appropriate for SCIC players to set up a database of existing bylaws, ideally commented on by their authors or by experts commissioned to do so. This will provide an overview of the statutory arrangements most favored in practice, as well as a critical look at these arrangements.

2. Develop frequently asked questions and gather feedback

Issues

The SCIC is therefore an atypical legal instrument, combining commercial law and cooperative principles. This originality is a factor of legal complexity for public players wishing to become involved in such a structure, which could discourage such initiatives.

Recommendations

As an extension of the corpus of statutes mentioned above, it would be interesting to set up a FAQ with questions and answers from public-sector players involved in a SCIC, following on from the RTES's work on the subject.

The SCIC, introduced into French law by a law passed in 2001, is still relatively recent, and therefore not widely used. So, in addition to the statutes and FAQ that make up the knowledge base, it would be interesting to gather feedback from local authorities that have mobilized such a structure, in order to show the diversity of uses that can be made of it, and to reassure interested players about the complexity of creating such a structure.

Once we've grasped the subtleties of the SCIC, it remains to consider the specific features of the cooperative as a structure for a digital commons project. We won't go back over the definitions of the digital commons in general, on the one hand, and of the particular digital commons that is the object of the SCIC, on the other, which are the subject of Practical Note 2 - Defining the commons and the object of the SCIC that supports it. But we will address the need for the public player to explain the choice of an SCIC structure in its approach to supporting digital commons.

A. Explain the choice of SCIC in the preamble

Issues

Indeed, the choice of a cooperative is not a neutral one, as it carries with it strong principles and values; but these are justified in the light of the structuring and development of digital commons. It is therefore essential for the public sector player to be able to justify the choice of such a structure, both internally and to potential partners.

Recommendation

This clarification of the choice of SCIC can be written into the structure's articles of association, as a preamble. In this respect, it is possible to draw inspiration from existing examples, such as MedNum1 , which includes the State itself among its members. In fact, the State's participation required a great deal of legal work, which was transcribed in the preamble to MedNum's articles of association in order to justify the choice of a SCIC:

"The SCIC is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to satisfy their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a collectively owned and democratically controlled enterprise".

The choice of the société coopérative d'intérêt collectif form represents an adherence to

fundamental cooperative values as defined by the Alliance Coopérative

International, including :

• cooperation
• social transformation
• he empowerment of individuals and increasing their power to act
• social utility
• general interest and the common good
• solidarity

In addition to these fundamental values, or derived from them, the cooperative identity of collective interest is defined by :

• responsibility in a shared project ;
• transparency and legitimacy of power;
• the company's long-term future;
• the right to creativity and initiative;
• openness to the outside world ;
• non-divisible reserves to ensure the independence of the company and its

solidarity between generations of cooperators.

The purpose of the cooperative is reflected in the following principles:

• democratic management: 1 associate = 1 vote in each college ;
• collective ownership and sustainability: non-shareable cooperative assets and reserves ;
• satisfying economic needs and aspirations :
• limited capital interest ;
• variability of share capital ;
• membership and individual withdrawals.

The SCIC status is perfectly in line, in terms of its organization and objectives, with the project presented above."

B. Securing the democratic functioning of the scic in the articles of association

Dedicate to the use of agile methodologies

Issues

The participation of a public player in a cooperative structure also requires a clear definition of its role, especially as the public player is not accustomed to this type of structure. This means preventing the design of a common roadmap dictated not by users or the community, but solely by the public player.

Recommendation

To achieve this, it is important to formalize certain commitments in the articles of association to ensure the collective management of the commons project, such as the use of agile methodologies, or the prevalence of user feedback in drawing up the roadmap.

Detail the content of these methodologies

Issues

The inclusion in the bylaws of the use of agile methodologies in the governance of the SCIC should be accompanied by a presentation of these methodologies. This addition to the articles of association, ideally in an appendix, will meet two objectives. Firstly, to ensure that the various members share the same vision of the cooperative's governance and management. Secondly, to facilitate the integration of new members during the life of the project and the SCIC that structures it.

These measures are preventive in nature, and will be usefully complemented - over the long term - by a major program to acculturate public servants (and elected representatives) to the benefits of agile development methodologies and listening to platform users. In particular, this program should raise awareness among public servants (and elected representatives) of the benefits of agile development methodologies and listening to platform users, as opposed to vertical decision-making.

3. Balancing power

Issues

It may also be useful to detail the cooperative's governance beyond what is required by law, so as to be as transparent as possible for the public player, but also for all members. In particular, it's a question of balancing the powers of the General Meeting and the Board of Directors, so that the former is responsible for the major orientations, and the latter for day-to-day management.

Recommendation

To this end, particular attention should be paid to the wording of the articles governing the powers of the General Meeting and the Board of Directors. In this respect, the breakdown proposed in the model GIP constitutive agreement drawn up by the DAJ is an ideal working basis.

4. Combine by-laws and internal regulations to make the project easier to understand and support

Issues

The MedNum example also shows that bylaws can usefully be enriched with a preamble outlining and explaining the process. This helps to ensure that stakeholders, including the public sector, understand and support the project. On the other hand, this objective can be undermined by the drafting of bylaws that are intended to be as complete as possible regarding the structure's operating procedures.

Recommendations

Understanding and therefore support for the project can be ensured by drafting the articles of association succinctly, and limiting their content to the main guidelines of the common project and the cooperative.

The drafting of bylaws outlining the project could usefully be accompanied by bylaws detailing the technical and operational implementation of the project.

5. Developing new tools

Finally, the idea was raised during the workshop of producing, based on the existing agreement adapted to associations, a multi-year objective agreement applied to SCICs and geared towards the production of common goods. The advantage of such an agreement lies in the commitment made by the public-sector player who signs it to provide long-term funding for the project, so that the latter can plan its development over the medium term. This will enable the SCIC and, above all, the portage and production of commons, to be placed within a regulatory framework known to the public player, and therefore reassuring.

Summary of recommendations

1. Bring together all the resources produced for public-sector use in a single knowledge base, under the aegis of a recognized authority.
2. Include a compilation of existing SCIC statutes in the knowledge base.
3. Include a FAQ on SCICs in the body of documentation, following on from RTES's work on the subject, and supplied by public players.
4. Include feedback from local authorities that have set up and are members of SCICs in the knowledge base.
5. Draw on MedNum's bylaws to clarify the relevance of the SCIC to the objective of supporting a digital commons project.
6. Include in the articles of association, following the corporate purpose, an article stipulating that "Members undertake to operate according to the principle of agile development methodologies, with a prevalence of user feedback".
7. The methodologies adopted are described in detail in the "Miscellaneous Provisions" section or in dedicated internal regulations.
8. Balance the powers of the General Meeting and the Board of Directors in the SCIC's bylaws.
9. Limit the content of the bylaws to the legal minimum.
10. Draw up internal regulations to complement the articles of association and detail the way the cooperative operates.
11. Produce a multi-year agreement of objectives, applied to SCICs and geared towards the production of digital commons.