01.11.2007
Bleak white paper
The White paper on NUS governance in brief
Recognising a "crisis" in the NUS, last year's annual conference decided to conduct a "far-ranging review of NUS governance". Items that were supposed to be tackled included the lack of involvement of students in the NUS, the lack of any political culture and the financial viability of the organisation.
The way in which this was done, however, reflects precisely the problem at the heart of the NUS: it is an utterly bureaucratised vehicle for upcoming politicians and careerists to start their 'training'.
NUS president Gemma Tumelty simply appointed a steering group to produce a report, which was first published as a 'pink paper' in June. Now, the White paper on NUS governance has been presented to the NUS national executive in two emergency meetings in October. According to AWL member Sofie Buckland, she and SWPer Rob Owen were the only members of the 27-strong, Labourite-dominated NEC to vote against the document as a whole (the two Student Broad Left supporters on the NEC were all over the place, voting against, for or abstaining when various aspects of the document were debated).
The white paper is to be presented to an emergency conference (very likely on November 29), which will have far fewer delegates and be far less transparent than annual conference. Not only that: the intention is to allow no amendments. Emergency conference can merely vote for or against the document as a whole.
The key points outlined in the report1 :
Annual conference is to become a "congress", whose main aim is "a celebration of the year". There would be no resolutions, no discussion about contentious issues of the day, no real debate. Congress would merely ratify a number of policies prepared at five smaller "zone" conferences (welfare, society and citizenship, higher education, further education and active unions).
Local student unions could merely 'appoint' delegates and would not even have to pretend to hold elections. The aim is to dramatically reduce things, compared to present conferences, with each union having only one delegate: Manchester with its 20,000 students would have the same representation as a small catholic college of 200 people.
The NUS NEC is to be split into two bodies - the "board" and the "senate". The board will deal with supposedly "non-political" matters such as legal policies, wages of senior management, etc. It will have up to 15 members, up to six of which are "external" members appointed by conference.
More radical changes are proposed for the huge senate, which is supposed to deal with "political" issues, like agreeing NUS policies and coordinating the work of the zones. It is to be made up of representatives from the five zones, delegates of the so-called liberation campaigns, two members from each social policy campaign, 15 'ordinary' members and a number of non-voting external members from "appropriate" organisations like the British Medical Association.
This would lead to the effective abolition of the 'Block of 12' part-time NEC members, which is currently elected at conference via single transferable vote. In recent years this has been the only way for minority viewpoints to get a foot in the door. Having been fought for by the left, it is probably the most democratic part of NUS structures.
In effect, the proposals would make the NUS into an even less transparent and accountable body than it already is.