Introduction
Student Respect has not focused on the structures of NUS but has campaigned for peace, justice and equality as well as building the NUS’ own education campaign when many student officers have shied away from “politics.” Unlike many of the individuals who have focused on governance the left is a key component of any future campaigns the NUS will need to run to defend itself
The Current Direction
Substituting “mission statements” for real political vision is a symptom of a bigger problem - NUS is turning itself away from being a mass campaigning federation into a centralised professional lobby group. Staff are more central to a conception of campaigning based on tinkering within the limits set by parliamentary committees rather than ideologically opposing the government’s marketisation of education. With this mindset, NUS conference is an unwieldy expensive bolt on to the process of creating specific campaigns (to be “actioned” by the national office); The National Executive (NEC) is “too diverse, large and political”; and matters of finance, accounting and process are the determining factor in deciding a new structure for the organisation.
On the issue of student political groups the green paper states “that much political conflict that does occur is often habitual and pointless”. Very little of the conflict has been “pointless” and at NUS Conference this was confirmed – these conflicts actually centre on real political differences as to the direction of NUS and its campaigns, and should be seen as part of a healthy debate. The governance review shouldn’t seek to minimize political difference that is healthy and honest. When people are honest about their political affiliations real and meaningful debate can take place. The review should therefore include provisions to empower students to be strong and confident in forming, debating and defending their political views, not vilifying those students who believe the issues that NUS face are political.
Later, the section posits that the distaste for a ‘political NUS’ should be seen in the context of a wider rejection of current political structures, and these are problems that “go far beyond our organization”. This is correct and should reinforce the need to reengage students with the political decisions that affect their lives. The alternative is to shy away from tough decision-making in favour of ‘a students not politics style of operating that tries to remove students’ issues from their wider context.
Governance
The language used in the parts of the Green Paper on the legal form of SUs tends towards the kind of legal changes that have seen some SUs become involved in business like exercises not geared towards their members’ needs and aspirations. Despite changes to the law NUS should not take such changes as a given and should support efforts to retain the democracy, interdependence and student-led nature of our SUs.
From the very leading questions on external trusteeship it appears the extension of external trustees is already a reality (at least in the minds of those conducting the governance review.) This is a shame in terms of making the NUS a truly democratic body in which students feel they have an important participatory role.
The rhetoric that external trustees offer wonderful skills and expertise is disingenuous. When people argue that the House of Lords should remain unelected for the purposes of retaining the knowledge of its members they are really arguing for a continuation of the status quo - the stifling of radical change. If anything external trustees with no links to student unions or student issues are an even more absurd idea. The calls for external trustees tend to come from people who do not care much for democracy or active campaigning. They are moving SUs more towards a model of business unionism that will destroy the NUS and accelerate the trend of students choosing activism over involvement in NUS. People who call for external trustees claim that they are trying to depoliticise student issues in the name of improving students’ lives. In actuality the very political agenda behind their calls is based on a view of politics that seeks to isolate issues from their context and limit the scope for change; maintaining that students must only focus on student issues in the belief that students are not affected by wider socio-political circumstances. If SUs and the NUS seek external advice when it is thought to be necessary, that is fine. But giving external trustees huge powers over the supposed representative of British students is a centralizing measure on the slippery slope concentrating power in the hands of the few while decisions are increasingly unaccountable.
Where this governance review sees a problem, it has two ways to go – a radical way involving hard decisions or a conservative way that buys in to current trends in society. When confronting a lack of accountability and democratic credibility it has two choices – deepen and radicalize NUS involvement in student issues while improving the participatory mechanisms for the involvement of ordinary students. Or following the model of business unionism that might look great in management-speak and financial figures but has nothing to do with changing the lives on students.
Conference and Cost
Over the past few years, it seems that National Conference has been downgraded in importance. This is an affront to democracy in NUS. A proper amount of time should be given to pass policy, hold meaningful elections and scrutinize the past year’s work. This year’s Conference was a disgrace – whole sections of policy were not debated, and a year’s work for some people was in vain. If NUS is serious about being a democratic, grassroots organization, then it should take its Conference more seriously.
It seems that the financial arguments against conference are untenable. How can NUS spend so much on wasteful resource practices but not instead channel that money into real efforts to involve students in more participatory structures? Conference operating costs in 2006 were just £328,000 out of a total of £5.5m operating costs, having grown £100,000 from 2005. By comparison, 2006 expenditure on “Fundraising and Marketing” was £1m, up from just £291K in 2005. At the same time, £191,000 was spent on “Leasehold Improvements” to the NUS office.
Next year Associate Cards are also supposed to jump from £310,000 to £455,180. This means that, if NUS Extra somehow makes another £1m in 06/07 (as predicted by NUS), and Associate Cards bring in an extra £150K then NUS will only make a £21,000 loss next year. Nonetheless the Senior Management Team has set themselves a target of making savings of £347,067 by April 2007 so that the overall deficit is brought down. Many people therefore fear that more attacks are going to be made to NUS democracy, particularly conference. There is no way that financial security should be put ahead of the organisation’s democracy and campaign effectiveness. Where there are gaps in funding NUS should see a problem and fix it by fundraising a hell of a lot more, wasting less and finding better ways to use the money it has.
The NUS’ campaign against fees has been tame on a large budget; in contrast People and Planet make huge changes with only a tiny fraction of NUS’ financial clout as have the Stop the War movement any many other organisations. This is what NUS has to do better.
Conference simply must be longer to avoid situations where whole policy zones are condensed into fifteen-minute discussions and vital motions fall foul of the curtain. There needs to be more time for election debates, fringes and policy debates. No financial argument should stand in the way of this. It seems those who are using the financial argument have another vision of NUS; one that is not of a strong, campaigning body for students but a lobbying organisation or bureaucracy.
A political NUS
To rebuild NUS we need to start from the sort of campaigning and vision we need to win and then work out how to pay for it. NUS’ central role must be pulling together the widest number and range of students to discuss their experience and build up an understanding of our education and the world around it. Only then can we start discussing how best to campaign effectively. To move NUS forwards we need to be working out ways to re-engage activists on the ground and politically debate the way to lay a base for our campaigns. To do this we need at least,
A large as possible conference focused on debating our experiences and political understanding of events and developments.
A broad, diverse National Executive representing political experience and range of student opinion (containing some form of block of 12.)
To put liberation campaigns at the heart of NUS campaigning
Supported local campaign groups/areas to link our debates and decisions to our activists on the ground.
Our Proposals
Policy and our sovereign body
The principle with political decisions and debates is that they should involve as many students as possible, be visible and accessible to those interested. The model across the Trade Union movement is an annual national delegate conference. The reasons for this are many but can be reduced to 3 main points
- A large annual conference draws big organizations together and focuses activists on a collective debate about the way forwards
- High profile events are more visible to members and attract interest from press and public
- It allows activists to network politically and develop specialist and priority campaigns alike.
Most trade union conferences are significantly larger then our own and far more focused on the political questions of the day. Our own conference is confusing in direct proportion to the constriction of the time for debate and the increase in space for bureaucratic items on the agenda. Common criticism from activists consists of:
· The lack of time for policy debates
· The number of consensus motions taking up time
· The amount of time taken up with financial, structural and bureaucratic business
· Frustration at the short length of speeches on political differences
Student Respect Suggests;
- A pre-conference meeting on each policy zone to draw together the consensual policy in into one document to be voted on as a whole at conference
- To change the motions structure to a simple word limit of 300 without a set format of believes, notes, resolves to encourage the elaboration of political differences and points to direct the national union. Amendments at 100
- Greater flexibility in zoning to allow delegates and political groups to understand the links between issues. For example between the marketisation of education and the drive to war and neo-liberalism.
- A week long conference with four full days of policy debate with time for elections and fringe meetings.
- A first afternoon to ratify finances introduce new delegates and deal with procedural business
- Longer speeches on the new format motions to allow the space for conference to be a real debate about the politics and strategy of our national union.
- For national conference to remain the sovereign body of NUS.
Delegates
Delegates should remain elected by cross campus ballot in the current form. Low turn out is a reflection of apathy and disengagement from NUS. This is something we should be fighting to change through campaigning not making concessions to. Those that argue for a different form of election or a sabbatical conference follow a model of NUS as a business like association of SUs along the lines of NUSSL not as a mass campaigning Union.
National Executive Committee
After conference NEC is the most effective body to set tactical and strategic path of NUS. At present it is caught between two contending realities (our idea of our selves as a campaigning organization and the creeping managerialism.) NEC must remain diverse, political and accountable to our sovereign body. It most also be the body which oversees the development of policy into campaigns and held accountable to conference: maintaining the principle of involving as many students in open decision making as possible while retaining an understanding of being elected to lead. NEC also have the advantage of being both democratically elected (so having a base in the movement) and being “cheap labour” (in the words of a senior member of staff.)
- A Block of 6 Fulltime officers elected from annual conference Made up of
National President
General Secretary (combining the current Nat Sec and treasurer)
VP Education
VP Further Education
VP Welfare
VP Society and Citizenship (to convene Society and citizenship)
- A Block of 15 (elected in the manner of the block of 12) to ensure the plurality of NUS is represented on the NEC funded to a level where they are expected to take on a level of work for the NUS within their remits. NUS has the resource to fund the block to a level where they can operate as both a political balance on the NEC and an organizer for NUS in areas of work that would otherwise fall off the NUS agenda.
- Liberation officers to remain as the campaigns decide.
- Special Nations Officers to remain.
- To Maintain an International Students officer.
We should aim to maintain a well funded NEC of 30 and train the part time offices as organizers and activists so they can not only feed their differences into the strategic debate but reflect that debate by being equipped to build within the student movement to develop and expand NUS. Policy Sub CommitteesEach VP should convene a sub committee to develop relevant campaigns and work. They should also organize a one day Zone conference for activists to present their work and develop out of the motions submitted (to annual conference) a consensual policy document to be voted on to open the policy debate at annual conference.
Officers Group
The block of 6 should be responsible for overseeing the work of NUS by meeting on a weekly basis. They should be seen as a sub committee of NEC and report the minutes and actions on line to be seen by the NEC. NEC must remain the body that develops campaigns, strategy and direction.
Management Committee
The president, General Secretary and CEO are responsible for the staffing, finances and governance of NUS. They should also report to the NEC
Liberation
The liberation campaigns must be properly funded and maintain their autonomy over:
1) What they call themselves
2) What kind of committee structure they have.
3) What form their campaigns take
4) What policy they pass, even if that policy contradicts or is critical of the current policy or operation of NUS
5) How they spend their money on campaigns and administration
6) What kind of extra, autonomous fundraising they wish to undertake, if any
As long as what ever they do is decided democratically.
Regions, council and areas
NUS should be working towards dropping regions and abolishing annual council immediately as an undemocratic and pointless waste of time. Instead we should be working towards a development of policy making areas which could assist Unions in coordinating campaigns on a local basis. Areas should work within the framework set by annual conference and draw funding for their actions directly from CM’s on a campaign by campaign basis. It is a myth that good campaigning costs a lot of money.
- Abolish National Committee
- Change regions into semi autonomous democratic areas with small elected non-sabb committees convened by their RO. The RO to be tasked with representing the policy of NUS and ensuring a dynamic relationship with the National Union.
- Move towards the breaking of these Regions into more sensible local area units (maintaining the relationship with the RO/regional office mentioned above.)
Such areas could provide a democratic link between the policies of the NUS and the campaigning work on the ground as well as making NUS assist Unions in coordinating their campaigns. If we can succeed in this NUS should be able to save money by shifting some of the cost on to better off HEs within local areas as well as ensuring campaign development is dependent on developing an expression amongst our grass roots members and SUs.
Accountability
To ensure accountability between the NEC and annual conference we need a winter meeting of conference. This need not be more then one day affair where we vote on the plan derived from conference and amend as necessary. Our experience of extraordinary conferences demonstrates that this needs not be an exceedingly expensive compared to our campaigns launch etc. Motions of no-confidence (etc) could be heard at such an event so long a suitable notice was given. Best practice should also ensure all documents up for discussion are available a suitable time before the event. It would also be an opportunity to develop networks between officers, activists and the NEC and to ensure conference delegates saw their relationship with NUS as more then a few days in Blackpool.
Governance and Trusties
Student Respect does not accept the drive towards an external trustee board is in the best interests of NUS. The charities commission is not insisting upon it. The experience of Student Unions which have pursued this root is at best mixed and often reflects a move away from being political and democratic campaigning organizations. It is our firm believe that if the political basis for our changes is carried through into looking at our finance and governance a solution can be reached which maintains a line of accountability and power running between students, annual conference and the NEC without shifting power to a unaccountable and non-student lead trustee board.
In peace and Solidarity
Rob Owen on behalf of Student Respect.
