Reflections on Students Union Governance

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Reflections on Students Union Governance

• Jim Dickinson
• Manager of Regions Development NUS

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Purpose of Presentation

• History and Background
• Context to Governance and Reform
• Understanding of the debates and paradoxes within
  Governance
• Understanding of wider political thrusts and
  constructs
• Suggestions, Options, Choices

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Democracy

• Democritus
• Of, pertaining to, or after the style of
  Democritus the Greek philosopher, known as the
  laughing philosopher. The practice of democritus
  is laughing at everything

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Governance

• Governance
• The state of being governed (1590)
• Governing system or body
• Mode of living

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In the beginning

• NUS started with a small number of old /
  redbrick universities in 1922
• Local Governance was by SRC (Student
  Representation Council)
• Small national conferences
• Interrupted by World War II
• NUS collection of gentlemens clubs
• Small higher education sector
• No politics could be discussed

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By the early 60s

• We had
• Robbins report
• Expansion of higher education
• Polytechnics
• CATs became universities
• New universities

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By the late 60s

• This happened
• Jack Straw becomes NUS President and constitution
  changed to enable NUS to have political debate
• Growth of sabbatical officers
• NUS Conference gets bigger (and bigger)
• Governance by general meeting
• Similar in style to Trade Union mass meeting
  democracy

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By the start of the 70s

• We had political radicalism
• Anti-apartheid movement
• Womens Rights (Abortion Act)
• Fascist regimes in most of Europe / Latin America
• Greece
• Spain
• Portugal
• Soviet Bloc
• Vietnam War
• Coup in Chile
• Democracy movement in Northern Ireland
• Miners strikes to name but a few

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In the 70s

• Parallel era of Students Union campaigns
• Occupation at Hornsey College of Art
• (Kim Howells)
• Autonomy issues
• Campaigning on overtly political issues
• Occupations became the favoured tactical option
  based on General Meeting decisions

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into the 80s

• 1970s growth of activism
• 1979 Election of the Thatcher Government
• (determined to knobble Unions)
• (1973 failed attempt by Mrs Thatcher then
  Education Secretary)
• 1981 Change to block grant funding in Unions
• 1984 Miners Strike
• NLP court case establishes charitable status
  issues

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In the 80s

• Definition of Students Unions as charities
• 1985 ultravires payments definition of what
  Unions can and cannot spend money on
• End to political donations and payments
• 1986 Education Act to prevent no platform
  policies

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In the late 80s

• Late 80s - Numerous attempts to legislate against
  Students Unions, most notably Tim Janman
• Switch from General Meetings back to councils
  (attendance accountability)
• Trade Unions move to postal balloting
• 80s/90s growth of commercialisation
• Further growth in number of Sabbs and student
  numbers

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Into the 90s

• Trade Unions have abandoned mass meetings and
  mass picketing
• Participation in Students Union elections cause
  concern
• Charities and not for profit examine new
  methods of governance

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Into the 90s

• 1994 Education Act
• Great campaigning minimised potential damage to
  NUS and Students Unions but increases
• Institutional scrutiny and responsibility for
  overview
• Falls in volunteerism
• Gap in governance scrutiny in many Unions
• NUS portrayed by its opponents/denigrators as
  out of touch and unaccountable
• Local Institutional Codes of Practice
• 1990s Execs become all powerful supreme
  Soviets

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Into the 90s

• Participation rates in Unions fall further
• Election of Labour Government in 1997
• Office of the Deputy Prime Minister promote a
  revolution in management practice and governance
  in Local Authorities
• Various working groups on good practice
• Charities Bill, 2005
• Students Unions remain largely unregulated

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What is Good Governance?

• Good governance is a powerful tool in driving
  forward organisational goals bad governance is
  fatal to performance and stability
• ACEVO Rethinking Governance
• Clarity about objects, vision, mission and
  values
• Efficient structures, policies and procedures
• Clearly identifiable Trustee body, right balance
  of skills and experiences
• Manages and uses resources to optimise potential
• Accountable in a way that is transparent and
  understandable
• Flexible enough to influence and adapt to change
  in the environment
• Charity Commission Hallmarks

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Reform in the air

• Nolan principles
• Corporate reform after scandals
• Local Government reform and work of ODPM
• NUS reform
• NUSSL example
• Recent NUSAMSU/NUSSL seminar

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Environmental change

• Change is size and diversity of student
  population, grown from homogenous village into
  cosmopolitan towns
• Time poverty and change in motivation of students
• Impact of technology and competition upon social
  behaviour of students
• Activist model clearly is unrepresentative

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Maturity of SUs

• Increasingly want to do things well not just be
  allowed to do them
• Move from independence to inter-dependence, more
  self-confident, more open to outside influences
• More honest about role of staff in organisation
  and concern about reliance on this

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Failure

• Many SUs are achieving unprecedented poor
  financial results. This isnt just about local
  performance or quality
• Long term proportional student participation
  generally is in decline. In the case of
  governance this undermines legitimacy
• SUs not seen as relevant to growing sections of
  the student population
• Challenges are becoming greater and more complex

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Why Governance Reviews?

• Existing structures not relevant to modern HE
  environment
• There is a pretence that it all works
• Having the whole exec as Trustees doesnt work
  and is totally unrealistic
• Poor match up between legal responsibilities and
  current structure, most notably the role of
  Council
• Little real transparency or accountability of
  Trustees
• Many sectors of society are reviewing governance
• SUs should develop their own solutions and
  mechanisms before they are imposed
• The SU has an opportunity to show leadership in
  the SU sector

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What is Governance?

• Fundamentally about power and control
• "What power have you got? Where did you get it
  from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To
  whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid
  of you? Tony Benn
• Lets find a way to get officers relieved of
  management and day to day running and get them
  refocused, and perhaps reclassed, by extolling
  the virtues of trusteeship and representation.
  Peter Robertson

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Two Traditions

• Two traditions
• Self help/mutualism and
• Charity
• Charity- Philanthropy by the well to do
• Mutuality- Centred on working class traditions-
  credit unions etc
• Unincorporated associations
• Mutuality dies out across 20C, Charity grows

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SUs as Charities?

• Significant bodies of advice on Governance
  aimed from and at Charity Tradition
• Students unions are an odd fit- self organised,
  democratic, structurally based on mutualism
• Adoption of UI structures
• Recipients of taxpayers money- Charitable style
  funding
• Uneasy status- deemed charitable in 1980s in
  response to political activity

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Charity Law and Reform

• Recent drive for User Representation on Charity
  Boards but still not common (LRTA)
• Key principle of Charity is that trustees do not
  benefit from involvement
• Where does that leave UIs deemed as Charitable?

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Charity Law and Reform

• Other key principles include
• Selected for skills and knowledge
• Complex organisations need sophisticated trustees
  able to deal with the responsibilities
• Unpaid
• Key principle of volunteerism upheld by public
• Not beneficiaries
• Conflict of Interest
• Trustees are Trustees
• Helicopter involvement
• Not mixing governance with management

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Students Unions Trustees

• Those, according to the Governing document, in
  control of the management and administration of
  the Charity
• In Students Unions
• All elected
• Often all paid (not at sabbatical rates!)
• All beneficiaries
• Mixing Governance with Management
• Board is mandatable
• All accidental!
• Taken in the context of quality charity
  governance
• bad news
• Taken in the context of mutualism
• some good news

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So- what are we good at?

• Senior management manage the board, AGM and
  Directors
• Incredible strength in user involvement
• Democratic Structures- used less for policy but
  still used for crisis
• Sabbaticals- Incredible learning curve, closeness
  to constituents, passion energy, hat juggling

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A Comparison
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Governance Paradox

• Who Governs?
• Representative v Professional Boards
• But there is, and will continue to be, a tension
  between the management driven and output related
  approach which is central to many recent changes,
  and the need for organisations providing public
  services to involve, respond to, and reflect the
  concerns of the communities which they serve
• Nolan 1996

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Representative/Professional

• Community Representation in public and voluntary
  organisations achieved through election or
  stakeholder selection
• Defined as the VS Board legitimacy
• Example FE College Corporations
• Stakeholder Bodies with selected membership
• Tension in skills/knowledge mix
• Limited elections (staff and students)

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Representative/Professional

• Legitimacy Effectiveness Accountability
• Move toward managerialism
• 80s education reform- Black papers
• Quangos- removing democratic accountability
• Pendulum swings back- Making accountability
  real
• Carvers Moral Ownership

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Representative/Professional

• The legitimate board- effective and accountable
• Effectiveness
• do you know what you are doing with my money?
• training support (internal?)
• accidentalism?
• standard?
• support for processes
• effective processes

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Representative/Professional

• The accountable board
• Transparency openness
• External audit and evaluation
• Benchmarking
• Forums for consultation
• The replicating board classes
• Celebrating diversity

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Performance/Conformance

• Conformance (Compliance)
• HS, Law, Regulation
• Attention to detail, exercise of care, skills in
  monitoring, evaluation reporting
• Students Union officers skills
• Performance
• Setting mission character, vision
• Vision, Strategic Thinking, Risk Taking, Pro
  Activity
• Students Union officers and little picture
  conservatism (one year cycles electoral
  imperative)

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Performance/Conformance

• Pressures
• Be innovative and entrepreneurial
• Targets, Monitoring, Audit, Constraint
• Quasi-Autonomy- Control achieved through funding
  methodologies
• Getting bogged down in compliance
• Getting bogged down in day to day detail

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Controlling/Partnering

• Controlling/Partnering Management
• Consent, Difference, Dissensus
• CEOs- level of support they get
• Setting agendas, deciding how issues presented,
  controlling information
• Professional status- definitions of expertise
  (bars and CSR)
• External support and careful analysis
• Codes of standards

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Dominant/Subservient

• Dominant
• All powerful- makes decisions- accountable in law
  for those decisions
• Subservient
• Mandatable by a wider body- told what to do by
  other bodies
• In a membership charity, when do trustees get to
  veto?

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Delegate/Trustee

• Delegate representation.
• elected officials do exactly what they think the
  people who elected them want them to do.
• elected officials are merely "delegates" who
  mirror the preferences of the voters, and bring
  little interpretative initiative to their tasks
  as representatives.
• The advantage of this notion of representation is
  that it is transparent and honest you get what
  you pay for.
• The disadvantage is that a "delegate" is no
  better than the people who put him or her into
  office. If voters are shortsighted or irrational,
  then their representative will merely translate
  those attributes into public policy. If the
  student body were a campus of heroin addicts,
  then our elected officers would be busy getting
  clean needles!
• Trustee representation.
• This means that elected officials do what they
  think is best for the people, which may not be
  what the people themselves want!
• In this sense, representatives treat their
  position as a form of public trust. The advantage
  of this view of representation is that it starts
  from some notion of the public good that exists
  above the selfish interests of individuals. It
  holds out the idea that representative government
  may correct for the shortsighted or irrational
  tendencies of the electorate. It also recognises
  a role for merit, and meritocracies, in public
  affairs.
• The most obvious expressed disadvantage is that
  "trustees'" might themselves begin to act in an
  autocratic, self-interested, or even corrupt
  manner. Who rules the rulers? At the very least,
  the idea of '"trustee" representation rests upon
  the undemocratic premise that average people are
  incapable of managing their own affairs, and
  require the leadership of people wiser and more
  talented than they.

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Delegate/Trustee

• The trustee sees as the start point for interest,
  skill development and concern the organisation
  rather than those it seeks to serve. It already
  knows about the members. It needs to learn about
  the union.
• The delegate sees as the start point for
  interest, skill development and concern the
  members rather than the edifice that seeks to
  serve it. It already knows about the union. It
  needs to learn about the students.
• We might of course argue that both are crucial,
  and any serious examination of the
  trustee/delegate dichotomy says as much.
• But consider the amount of time, investment and
  skills in each camp in a students union
  sabbatical officer. Consider what the members
  perceptions are. Consider your own skills and
  expertise. See any leanings?

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Democratic/Representative

• Terms rendered meaningless in students unions
  through overuse
• Representative achieved in content, consultation
  and involvement
• Democratic achieved in involvement
• You can be a representative organisation without
  being a democratic organisation

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Interest Definitions

• The Board resolves interests
• The interests of Students
• The interests of the funder
• Negative take- manipulable by the funder
• Medium take- range of interests defined by the
  funder
• Positive take- charity donation to an autonomous
  self help group
• Role of students money- student as
  consumer/diversity profile of spender/involver
• Boards having multiple accountabilities

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Accountable Organisations

• Market Accountability
• Survey Accountability
• Scrutiny Accountability
• Moral Accountability
• Political Accountability

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The Challenge for Trustees

• Demonstrate legitimacy in the face of structural
  and cultural differences to usual charities
• Ensure that the compliance role is in place and
  effective
• Ensure that any (even constructively defined)
  trustees are empowered

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Wearing Hats

• Portfolio Manager/Minister
• I am the media sabb and manage the various media
  groups in the union
• Mandatable, Elected Representative
• I am part of the exec and so am accountable to
  the members through a council
• Charity Trustee
• As discussed

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Wearing Hats

• Different hats for different moments
• Learning behaviours and skills/knowledge for
  different situations
• Committee episodes separate the hats

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The traditional board

• One way of conceptualising the traditional
  board is to divide its key functions into three
• 1. Regulatory- this is the compliance function
• 2. Strategic- the development of the organisation
• 3. Political- the response and role inside
  societys wider system
• All 3 on an executive committee?

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One Solution
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One Solution

• Would vitiate the problem of accidental
  trustees
• Relieve student representatives from the day to
  day issues
• Demonstrate legitimacy
• Solve some of the oddities referred to earlier
• Have a real cultural effect- improving the
  processes of Governance by building in external
  viewers to the compliance and organisational
  development aspects, whilst retaining direct
  membership control of the political.

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Multiplicity of Functions

• The Representative Organisation
• Activist led and run- democratic debate over
  positions and mandatable officers
• SRC, Union Council, Ed Welf, Media?
• The Self Help Organisation
• Amateur/Self run- community
• Clubs, Socs, Acivities, Media?
• The Benevolent Organisation
• In the interests of
• Bars, Shops, Welfare Services, etc

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Multiplicity of Functions

• Different forms of Governance for each?
• Splitting off and out the functions?
• How do we create
• Better Trustees
• Better Representatives
• Better Activists

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Strong Students Unions

• Students Unions as representative bodies-
  campaigning for defence, promotion and extension
  of rights of members

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Meetings

• What does it do?
• What power does it have?
• Who accountable to?
• What rules must it play by?
• What does it achieve?
• (recognising that the most important outcome of
  democracy is democracy itself)

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Conclusions

• Recognising and Managing Paradox
• Benevolant Alturism v Self Organisation
• Democracy v Managerialism
• Processes v Outcomes
• Bad democracy is no better or worse than bad
  governance/ management

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Conclusions

• New, better, more effective structures and
  processes- management, scrutiny and compliance
• New, better, more legitimate structures and
  processes- democracy, accountability and activism

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Where now?

• Do we lead or do we follow?
• Will Unions be forced to regulate?
• Codes of conduct
• Simplified governance accessible systems
• Benchmark
• New forms of governance
• Revisit role of Unions and the role of Sabbatical
  Officers as activist / representatives and staff
  as avid servants
• Should we be asking our members what they want?
• New levels of debate and activism- religion

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Final Thought

• Student Identity- Questioning of authority power,
  radical
• Education- change the world or fit into world
• Vocational v General Education
• Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they
  were all alike. No question, now, what had
  happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures
  outside looked from pig to man, and from man to
  pig, and from pig to man again but already it
  was impossible to say which was which