Friday 15-12-2023 - 10:55

In week 8 you elected your team of six delegates for NUS National Conference 2024. Once elected, they went straight to work responding on your behalf to the National Union of Students’ consultation, on changes to their democratic and corporate structures.

 

 

You can read more about the proposals and the consultation process here.

You can read how your NUS delegates responded to the consultation below. You can also read the thoughts and reasoning behind their choices:  

Consultation Proposal A: Separate ‘UK’ from ‘England’

Q1- 1st preference: National Policy Assembly, 2nd preference: The Officer Executive

Merits to both models but given the importance of a 4-nation policy and given it wouldn’t be a frequent need to formulate such policy, it should be the reps of SUs that decide policy.  

Q2- 1st: Portfolio based + UK President, 2nd preference: Constituent based + UK President

We feel that there needs to be a President to act as a central figure in terms of coordination and representation for the organisation. Preference for portfolio based given the massive number of international students and the radically different challenges and experiences they face.  

Q3- 1st: Yes on NUS President

We feel that there needs to be a President to act as a central figure in terms of coordination and representation for the organisation.  

Consultation Proposal B: Flexible membership structures

Q4- 1st: Multi-purpose & Representative-based

Structures should be multipurpose given the number of responsibilities legislative bodies should have. Feeding in ideas, being part of campaign delivery & scrutiny are all essential functions for these structures. It should be representative to ensure that large student interest groups don’t steer the organisation to policy areas that aren’t really within the remit of NUS. Students have ample opportunity to be elected as NUS delegates and their role is already to represent a diverse student population.  

Q5- There should be a scrutiny sub-committee from each nation’s policy assembly.

There should be dedicated spaces to scrutinise Officers which is more formal and for students with better knowledge of NUS. By making these subcommittees it ensures democratic accountability and a mandate for those doing the scrutiny.  

Consultation Proposal C: Simple and modern governance

Q6- 1st: Students should not be involved directly in NUS democracy, 2nd: students should be involved only in submitting ideas and topics for discussion & being polled on their opinions on various issues.

As is currently done, students should be polled on issues and policies to get their opinions. The same goes for feeding into discussions at conference. However, given the potential for minorities to get overruled the current structure works best. 1 student, 1 vote runs the risk of ‘tyranny of the majority’.  

Q7- 1st: No change to current system, 2nd: Must be a cross campus vote

Current system works best as it allows lead delegates to coordinate the delegations actions, also allows for cross-campus balloting. For 2nd preference making it cross campus is not preferable but better than the alternative of no rules on elections.  

Consultation Proposal D: Create the Liberation Collective

Q8- 1st: As is now – VP Liberation

VP Liberation makes the most sense as it’s well within their remit. A Liberation Convenor would be best placed to be operational staff, danger of role becoming unproductive.  

Q9- 1st: Migrant students’ group

Given the massive increase in international students and the unique challenges they face, including racism and lack of representation it’s important for them to have their own group.  

Q10- We think a liberation collective representing international students should be called ‘international students’ instead of ‘migrant’.

‘International students’ is a much better term; migrant involves assumptions about students’ positions.    

If you would like to ask your delegates about their response and work so far, please email su.governance@lancaster.ac.uk. If you have any questions about the reform and changes to NUS, please contact them directly on membership@nus.org.uk.