SBSU Governance Review 2024: Summary of proposed changes
1. What is this all about and why does it matter?
1.1.South Bank Students’ Union is an independent charity and registered company that provides representation, support and opportunities for students at London South Bank University. We are regulated by the Charity Commission and we must abide by the Education Act 1994. Because of this, we must have a set of written rules called the Articles of Association (“Articles”). We also have a secondary set of rules called Bye-Laws.
1.2.One of the principles we have to abide by is that we must have democratically elected representatives, who are elected from our membership (LSBU students). That’s why we have Sabbatical Officers, including the President, as well as other elected roles. The rules around this, for example which of the “major office holder” roles are available and how it all works, must be set out in our Articles.
1.3.Over the past year, we have reviewed how well our democracy is working and we have found that it is not fit for purpose; students at LSBU are not well represented by, or engaged in, our current model. Given our main purpose is to represent students, this can’t continue and needs to be reformed. Making big changes will involve changing both our Articles and our Bye-Laws.
1.4.Changes to the Articles need to be agreed by students, the Trustee Board (who are made up of a majority of students, as well as some external volunteers) and the University Board of Governors, and finally by the Charity Commission. Whereas changes to the Bye-Laws are only agreed by Trustees and sometimes also need university approval.
1.5.We have shared a draft proposal of the Articles with all LSBU students and invite any suggestions for amendments to it before the deadline of 1pm on 16th October 2024. A final proposal, taking these suggestions into consideration, will be circulated to all students who are entitled to vote on whether or not to accept the changes at the Annual Members Meeting in November 2024.
2. How did the review work? Who was consulted?
2.1.Whilst there are a number of different stakeholder groups, students are the people who we wanted to hear from most. We made a survey available for all LSBU students to complete and had a response from around 1,400 students. We also conducted a series of focus groups with students who were able to provide more detailed feedback and suggestions, and we held one-to-one consultations with last year’s elected student leaders.
2.2.Alongside this, we consulted the Trustee Board and LSBU colleagues. We also took the opportunity to review how other students’ unions from across the country operate their democracy, and to take stock of how well students are engaging in our democracy (for example, how many students are standing and voting in our elections, attending Union Council meetings and meeting the expectations of their elected roles).
3. What is the current model and why isn’t it working?
3.1. The current model includes 4 Sabbatical Officer roles, which are elected, paid, full-time, one-year positions (President and Vice-Presidents), and 13 Part-Time Officer roles, which are elected, unpaid, voluntary roles that students hold alongside their studies.
3.2.Students do not feel represented by this model. This was particularly because they said they identify more strongly with their course than with the university as a whole, and these roles are not linked to academic subject areas and are predominantly occupied by students from the Business School and the School of Engineering and sometimes the School of Law and Social Sciences. Some schools, such as ACI, ACH and BEA get almost no representation at all.
3.3. This is because students on the most vocational courses, such as Nursing or Apprenticeship courses, are much less likely to feel that they are able to (or want to) interrupt their study or career to take on a Sabbatical Officer role. It is also difficult, given the financial climate in the UK for students to take on an unpaid voluntary role alongside their busy study and placement schedule.
3.4.When students from these schools do not see themselves represented in the candidate list, they find they have little motivation to vote in the elections either because it does not feel relevant or beneficial to them. The consequence of this is that the majority of LSBU students are not represented in the elections through either the candidate list or the voting population.
3.5. The schools that are represented are also disproportionately male, international students, which results in an underrepresentation of female students and home students too (again, the majority of the LSBU student population).
3.6.We have been lucky in recent years to have some excellent Sabbatical Officers, but the role is complicated and those who have held the post have at times found it hard to understand their responsibilities and told us they sometimes feel overwhelmed at having to represent so many students with varied needs and experiences.
3.7.Part-Time Officer engagement has been very poor, with only a few exceptions, and those in post have said that committing to their role as a volunteer alongside their busy lives has been too challenging. Union Council attendance is poor, and those involved do not feel that the meeting serves the purpose of representing students and holding officers to account.
3.8.Student trustees are currently elected, voluntary roles where students need to attend 4 meetings per year as well as training sessions. With very few exceptions, engagement and understanding has been poor with the majority of these postholders being removed from their roles before the end of their terms over the past few years, resulting in diminished and ineffective representation from students on the Trustee Board (as well as a less effective Board overall). Voter turnout in the student trustee elections rarely exceeds 5%, because the majority of students are not aware of or interested in the membership of our Trustee Board.
4. What are the proposed changes and why?
4.1. The full-time Sabbatical Officer Vice-President roles will have a change of remit. Instead of 3 officers being responsible for representing the whole of the student body, there will be an officer for each school which will be dedicated to representing the needs of students specific to that school. These School Representatives will be elected and paid, and they will be employees of the Students’ Union, just like now, but they will be part-time to allow them to carry out this role alongside their studies without having to interrupt or take a career break. To reduce the workload so their study isn’t impacted, they will not have to do as much ceremonial or bureaucratic work as our current officers, including being a Trustee (“major office holders” for the purposes of the Companies Act). This allows them to focus all their working time to representing you, LSBU students without other distractions. The full-time Sabbatical Officer
post of SU President will remain in the structure in much the same way as they work now. They will provide support to the part time representatives and sit on the University’s Board of Governors as a student representative. They will also
remain in a leading role on the Union’s Trustee board, acting as Vice Chair. This is a change from their current role as Chair which will allow them to input their views and opinions in Trustee discussion more freely and without the restrictions of being the board’s Chairperson.
4.2.We believe this will be more effective because it guarantees that all students across the university have a representative that they can identify with. Being a paid role also means that students do not have as much pressure to find part time work whilst delivering their part-time elected role alongside their studies, which should minimise a significant barrier to engagement.
Part-Time Officer Roles
4.3. These roles will no longer exist under the new model but will instead be replaced by paid employment opportunities in the form of either student staff, placement/internship or full-time staff positions. These roles will support liberation networks, as well as Apprentices, part-time, international and postgraduate students.
Student Trustees
4.4.Student Trustees will be appointed by a sub-committee of the Trustee Board, not elected by cross-campus ballot. Being a student trustee is both an excellent career development opportunity as well as a serious responsibility. Therefore, appointing, rather than electing student trustees should increase the likelihood that the postholder will understand the role and engage well.
4.5.Union Council
4.6. The format and the name of the Union Council will change making it a purely representative forum. Students will no longer have to rely on the Council and its long and complex rules (as currently set out in the Articles and byelaws) to discuss officer accountability or submit policy motions as there are as there are other ways of getting these things actioned elsewhere in the Union’s governance structures. With the new structure, all schools will be represented, and this will be an opportunity for students to discuss common themes emerging across the whole university.
4.7. The elected Chair of this new representative forum will remain in place and provide a dual role, maintaining the responsibility of also being a representative on the University’s Board of Governors alongside the President. This role will be considered a “major office holder” for the purpose of the Education Act 1994, alongside the President. This does not change the responsibilities of the role but does make it less likely that the Union will ever being in a situation where no major office holders are in post which would breach the Union’s compliance with the Act.
5. What are the next steps?
5.1. The draft proposal has been circulated to all students who are welcome to suggest amendments until 16th October 2024.
5.2. The Trustee Board will take any suggestions made by students into consideration before circulating the final proposal to all students before the end of October, alongside a ‘resolution’ to adopt the draft proposed Articles at the Annual Members Meeting (AMM) in November.
5.3.Students will then be able to vote on whether to approve the final draft proposed Articles at the AMM in November 2024. However, approval is also required from the University, Trustee Board and Charity Commission.
5.4. Therefore, alongside this student approval process, there will also be an approval process with LSBU, a final vote of the Trustee Board and submission to the Charity Commission.
5.5.As you can see, updating our Articles is a complicated process. We must stick to these timelines to pass changes in time for the new academic year, so make sure not to miss your opportunity if you want to have your say.
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