Democratic Structures and Officer Team Reviews

1. Democratic Structures and Officer Team Reviews Final Report Presentation 7th Feb 2014

2. Projects Brief • Two projects run concurrently • Democratic structures Review • Officer Roles Review • Brief • To provide a democratic structure that meets the need of students who are members of the University of Birmingham Guild of Students from September 2014 and beyond and; • To provide a Guild Officer Team that meets the needs of the Guild and its membership for 2015 and beyond

3. Research Methodology • Mass survey (3,600 students) • Focus Groups to follow-up on survey • Key stakeholder interviews/workshops • Model options presented • Workshops to refine options • Final Models presented

4. Democratic Structures REview

5. Key Findings1 -How would you prefer representation within the Guild to be organised?

6. Key Findings2 - Holding elected students to account

7. Key Findings3 – What Decision-making methods should be available?

8. Key Findings4 – And which would you be interested to get involved in?

9. Key Findings5 – Which methods would you be interested to be involved in – Focus Group answers

10. Current model

11. Current Governance Structure

12. Issues with Current Model • Lack of student engagement with decision-making within the Guild • Widespread perception that Council is exclusive, intimidating and inaccessible to students • Officer accountability seen as only about disciplinary action – not about true accountability

13. Principles for New Model • Must involve a substantially greater number of students in the decision-making process than at present. • Must be accessible to all groups of students equally. • Must seek to address the other issues identified in the research • Should allow students to participate in discussion and at least some form of indicative voting without having to attend the Guild building • There must be an opportunity for students to formally approve the decisions taken by the Guild • Should not cost more than current arrangements but should enable redeployment of resources to ensure outcomes consistent with these principles

14. National Picture • Comparator Group of 22 Unions • Council model still the most common, but; • Those Unions that have gone through a significant review of this type in recent have moved away from this ‘traditional’ model

15. National Picture • Models in place include • On-line ideas/suggestions (website only) • Elected panels to make decisions • Randomly selected Juries to make decisions • On-line and physical indicative voting • All-student votes

16. Proposed model

17. The Proposed Model

18. The Proposed Model • Students, Committees and Officers can all submit Ideas • Can be idea, question or complaint • Passed to ‘Assessment’ for initial response to student • Checked by ‘Steering’ • Copied to relevant officer if appropriate • If wording problematic, student invited to meet with Officer • Posted to Website/App if acceptable • If controversial, Sabbatical Team (taking advice from senior staff, make final decision) • If decide not possible student has appeal to the Oversight Committee

19. The Proposed Model • Idea goes online/to App • App contains indicative voting options including ‘neither support nor oppose’ • Forum to allow student (and Officer) contributions to debate/discussion • Ideas stay on the site for an agreed minimum period of time • Idea requires 65 ‘Expressions of Interest’ to go forward to next stage

20. The Proposed Model • One per term • All Ideas discussed • Voting from on-line identified at start of discussion and forum posts played in room • Streamed and recorded • Discussion forum – not formal debate • Voters able to change votes already made, but not to vote twice • Officers to make presentation on Ideas from previous All-student votes? • Voting only closes at end of Assembly to allow all to vote/change vote including those watching live stream

21. The Proposed Model • Announcements at end of meeting on the results of all Ideas • Ideas getting less than 1/3 support are automatically rejected and go no further • Ideas getting between 1/3 and 2/3 support are passed forward to an All-student vote to decide • Ideas getting above 2/3% are approved as policy and go forward to an All-student vote for ratification

22. The Proposed Model • Maximum 2 per year to maximise interest • Two types of vote included: • Ratification of all Ideas receiving more than 2/3 approval in earlier phases • Decisions on those ideas receiving between 1/3 and 2/3 approval in earlier stage • 5% of members voting to achieve change

23. The Proposed Model

24. Officer Accountability Structures • Current model seen as purely about disciplinary action – no real accountability • Students have no access to officers except at forums

25. Proposed Accountability Structures • ‘Mixed method’ • On-line questions through App and website • Open Forums to allow face-to-face accountability • Officer Disciplinary Process retained to allow students to make formal complaints

26. Officer Role Review

27. Part-time Officers • 11 (or 12) current officer roles • 4 Liberation Officers • 4 Representation Officers • 3 (4) others (sometimes referred to as campaign officers) • Held accountable by Guild Council same as full-time officers • Role of Guild Officer Group is very vague and effectively undefined

28. Part-Time Officer Awareness

29. Part-time Officers National Picture - 8 of the comparator Unions now have no part-time officers, instead delegating more authority and responsibility to committee structures Interviews and Workshop Feedback - Recognition major difficulty of balancing student workload with part-time officer role and the responsibility on one student for major portfolios

30. Formal Proposal • To remove all Part-time officer positions • To increase autonomy of, and support to Associations and Committees • To permit Associations and Committees to both set own policy and to input into new structure • To introduce a ‘Chair’s Forum’ as link between Association’s and Guild Officers (non-decision-making body)

31. Full-time officers Officer Role Review

32. Officer Role Review • 7 Officers – ‘Strong Portfolio’ model • Poor awareness of officers amongst students • Concern that students look to these officers for leadership (large election turnout provides mandate for this) but that current Council restricts this inappropriately

33. Full-time Officer Role Review

34. Full-time Officer Role Review • Vice-President titles cause confusion amongst students as to role • Complex and compound role titles (especially when combined with VP abbreviation) – mean further lack of awareness of responsibilities

35. National Picture

36. National Picture • 19 of the group have an Elected President • Exactly half of the group (11 Unions) refer to the sabbaticals as Vice Presidents or Deputy Presidents. • All 22 have an Education or Academic sabbatical officer • 17 of the group have an Activities or Societies officer • 14 have a sabb post including the word Welfare • 9 have a sabb with a Community role • 8 have a Sports sabb role • 3 have a full-time PG officer • 3 have a Women’s officer sabb post

37. Specific Recommendations • The Officer titles should be as straightforward as possible, to maximise student understanding of the positions both at election and through the year. • The ‘Vice President’ titles be removed and replaced with ‘Officer’ • That the positions are clearly defined as leadership roles – that is they are not operational portfolio roles but take overall responsibility for large areas of the Guild’s work • That the team is of a size to allow all officers to sit within the Trustee Board structure • That, unlike the current ‘strong portfolio’ model, a new team must be seen as having collective political responsibility for the activities of the Guild. This will significantly influence the team’s ability to present to the University as a whole, rather than as a collection of individual officers, most of whom are not as involved with generating change within the University as they could be.

38. Further Research Findings • Workshops were quite clear that the current larger group was their preferred model – even though they identified over 50 possible portfolios that require officer input! • Previous officers are being asked – evidence so far is mostly in favour of larger group (9-3) • Role of Sports officer in particular is difficult given relationship with UB sport. Could this role be seen as separate from the ‘Trustee sabbs?’ – previous sabbs are split 1-1 on this so far

39. Proposed Team and Role Titles • President • Education Officer • Community Officer • Student Development Officer • Guild Affairs Officer • Welfare Officer • Sports Officer

40. Proposed governance structure

41. Proposed Governance Structure

42. Thanks you very much for listening Questions?