Tuesday 1 May 2012
NUS Referendum Season
Ok - little white lie, 2 Referendums does not a season make. However, I felt a rant coming on and it's about time for a fresh blog post anyway.
I guess my rant is about - just how much ignorance sounds better than fact, so then the background, firstly Aberdeen University Students' Association is holding a referendum on NUS Membership. Aberdeen is currently a member of NUS and the Students' Association are campaigning to keep it that way. Secondly, St Andrews who rather excitingly are holding their first NUS Referendum for 10 years having decided to disaffiliate 30 years ago. Yet again the Students' Association are leading the Yes campaign and that should send a pretty big hint to the No campaign up North.
Unfortunately, if St Andrews has a No campaign it's keeping very quiet, as is the Yes so in the interest of general interest I'm gonna take a somewhat impartial look at Aberdeen's campaigns and how ignorance does sound great.“I’m delighted that the SRC has voted unanimously to give students the chance to have their say over membership of the National Union of Students (NUS). Things have changed dramatically since St Andrews decided to disaffiliate over 30 years ago, and since the last referendum was held over 10 years ago. This has been an important year for national student politics, from RUK fees to the Governance Review, from the post-16 Education Paper to proposed UCAS reforms. I’ve worked closely with the NUS and look forward to playing an active role in the referendum”-- President of the Students’ Association Patrick O’Hare (source)
So, being the logical programmer type I'll just start at the top,
"FACT: The NUS costs AUSA £45,000 a year!" That I can't argue with, every Student Association pays an affiliation fee dependent on its size. So the question must be, is it value for money and the Yes campaign does quite nicely there, straight off the bat - AUSA accessed £15,000 in seed funding for a cinema project. That's 1 third of the affiliation fee back straight off the bat very tangibly. This is 1 large sum of funding out of many that Aberdeen will receive directly from NUS or through connections it has made in the process - for example Endsleigh, the student insurers that were started by NUS are very happy to sponsor Student Association's something that I know quite well from my years work at Abertay.
So that's funding but that's not what NUS is supposed to be about anyway, your Union represents you so how has NUS faired in that respect - well if you're a Scottish student, like roughly 86% of students a Scottish Universities, then you can thank in part NUS for leading a very strong campaign opposing tuition fees in the Scottish Elections, if we imagine this weren't the case then the remaining 86% of Aberdeen Uni's approximately 18,000 students could have ended paying 9k a year like the rest of UK students - roughly £1,400,000,000.00 saved for Aberdeen students - in fact, as an added bonus it can be said that to be value for money NUS only had to influence this outcome by 0.0032%.
Still £45,000 is a lot of money isn't it? Well... actually - Aberdeen Uni SA is compelled to make its accounts public (like ourselves) you can find them yourself right here: http://www.ausa.org.uk/downloads/Signed_accounts_31.07.11.pdf, so then you can also see for yourself their total income last year was £1,436,288 - which does help put £45k into perspective. In fact read on a bit further and AUSA made a profit of £98,406 - being a non-profit organisation, this means that the SA deems a sum more than double its affiliation fee as well... leftovers - money that is to inconsequential to shift this year.
Ok, so NUS works hard for its affiliation fee and the SA can certainly afford it, shall we move on?
"FACT: The NUS is incredibly undemocratic and unrepresentative" This one is perhaps my favourite because it does sound terrible the way its written but lets have a closer look. "Did you vote for Robin Parker to be re-elected this year? Unless you were one of a mere 5 delegates, you didn't have a vote!" Isn't that shocking - wait, a second, lets start now with the definition of delegate.
Noun: |
|
It is however true you'll seldom see NUS Officials running around campus - what with there being 6 or so of them. That's not why they aren't there though - they aren't there because if NUS was regularly liaising directly with the students AUSA would be cut out of the picture, it's protecting the autonomy of an SA by going through it to reach the students. Even with the discount cards where £4 out of every sale is given to your SA to help it fund projects.
"FACT: AUSA can be better off without NUS"
Ok the final point, I can't categorically say AUSA has no way of doing better - I can say that the guys running this campaign haven't stumbled upon it yet. So yes lets examine their list.
- Improve and renovate our Union Bar at Hillhead
40k can go along way towards renovating a bar I'm sure (by the way wasn't it 45k?) but like I said the SA already has 90k profit from last year that could go a lot further or in fact almost £350k of deposits if its urgent. That said as an Aberdeen resident, I don't remember their being an AUSA bar a few years ago so it can't be that run down already. - Increase the Societies Budget and available funding for societies
Yes, yes you could but lets look at those accounts again Sports (which I presume to mean Activities in general) spent £389,138 last year, that's almost a third of the budget and more than was spent on representation - adding £40k to that isn't going to make that much difference really is it? - Freedom to stock what we like in our cafes
I'll admit, this point impressed me slightly - by joining NUS you get access to NUSSL or NUS Services Limited, essentially a buying consortium, this means you get access to the kinda bulk buy rates you'd expect if every student bar in the country placed their orders together - however restricts you to NUSSL's list of suppliers. So ultimately, yes you could stock whatever you like and you'd also have the freedom to pay exponentially more if everything - imagine drinks prices in your Union the same as local pubs... ouch! - The ability to set our own agenda in our own council
Ok, now this baffles me - admittedly I don't know the in's and out's of AUSA's operation but Abertay our Student Representative Council meets roughly once a month to discuss an agenda prepared by the President featuring anything submitted by anyone - NUS certainly doesn't vet this - can't see why they'd want to either, again that'd come back to threatening autonomy.
So yeah, that's it - hope I've provided an interesting perspective on the Aberdeen referendum and if you happen to come upon this in the future and your SA is holding a referendum please feel free to comment me any other queries and I'll see what there is to be said about it.
So Aberdeen, take the advice of an Aberdonian, NUS Member and Officer of an NUS affiliated Union please - and
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