On Monday evening, the political leadership of the Students’ Union met in a dingy basement seminar room to discuss proposals addressing its ongoing engagement crisis.
However, after two hours of heated debate, Union Executive members were told they could not vote on the proposals because of bureaucratic complexities which were not flagged by Union staffers until the very last minute.
The policies, though serving different aims and interests, fundamentally point to the same problem. Despite being more commercially successful today than in recent memory, the Union continues to struggle to get enough students to care about its democracy.
Just two in ten UCL students voted in last year’s Leadership Race. More recently, The Cheese Grater revealed that over 60% of roles in October’s Rep Elections were vacant or uncontested, whilst turnout fell to a three-year low.
Engagement in democracy requires that voters have confidence their participation can make a real difference. The trouble for UCL Union, however, is that it has always struggled to communicate the value of its work to the people it represents.
Explainer: Who is in charge of the Union?
Every Spring, the student body elects six sabbatical officers, also known as sabbs. These are full-time, salaried positions earning a modest £30,000 a year with very fancy titles that mean very little to the average student. These include the President Goksu Danaci, Activities and Engagement Officer Ana Boikova, Education Officer Shaban Chaudbury, Welfare and Community Officer Rachel Lim, Equity and Inclusion Officer Eda Yildirimkaya, and Postgraduate Officer Darcy Lan. They work on a set of “priorities” loosely based on their manifesto pledges with the support of the permanent staff at the Union. The sabbs also have regular meetings with UCL management, with two of them sitting on the University’s Council alongside the Provost Michael Spence. Together, the sabbs collectively represent the Union’s political leadership and determine its strategic direction for the year in which they are in charge.
The Good...
It is often said that the first step to solving any problem is to accept that there is one.
The good news is that there are some within the Union who recognise low engagement as a real problem and are working hard to make the necessary changes.
Responding to queries about a proposal to introduce yet another student officer despite the recent revelation that the Union did not realise its Disability Officer had dropped out of UCL, Welfare and Community Officer Rachel Lim said: “A lot of it does fall on us [the sabbatical team] and the sabbatical officer responsible for reaching out to the Disability Officers.”
She said the circumstances were “difficult” in this particular case, but accepted that the incident raises key questions about the effectiveness of communications within the Union.
She added: “We need to make it more structured and [take] a bit more responsibility when it comes to how we’re reaching out.
“We are working internally to make sure we have more accountability within the Leadership Team [so that] we’re not neglecting talking to students… This is, all in all, a comms-facing problem where we need [to] shape up and work with officers.”
The Bad...
The bad news, however, is that not everyone agrees there is a problem.
On Monday, we put it to the Education Officer Shaban Chaudhary that his continued refusal to appear on the Union’s social media – one of its primary channels of communication with students – has had a direct impact on his reps’ attendance at the Education Zone, which failed to meet quoracy last week.
Chaudhary did not answer the question directly. Instead, he said: “Just because of the gloomy weather or cost of living, which is really impacting students, [reps] didn’t show up [to] one single Education Zone meeting.
“I won’t allow The Cheese Grater or anyone to raise any questions [about] rep engagement because they’ve been phenomenal in that space, and they’ve done so much for students.”
Nonetheless, The Cheese Grater insists on raising questions about rep engagement and the Officer’s refusal to participate in official communications because of the real impact his absence from the public view has had on student perception of the Union.
Sustainability Officer and climate activist Alan Salazar Guerra lamented how his team at Fossil Free Careers tried three times to present their policy at the Education Zone but were barred from doing so on each occasion.
Chaudhary, who chairs the Zone, explained the first time the policy failed to be presented was because the newly-elected reps had not received training; the second time because the agenda was sent out in his absence – without elaborating on where he was instead; and a third time when the Zone failed to meet quoracy.
But the Sustainability Officer said: “I am finding it very frustrating and feel not supported by the Union… I emailed [Chaudhary] and I didn’t receive a single response.
“There’s about 15 people who have worked on this for months… I’m not asking you guys to make this happen [today], but at least some courtesy and some acknowledgement of the situation would be appreciated.”
He pleaded with the Education Officer: “Please, I do need to ask from you more engagement with this motion.”
Chaudhary left that meeting an hour early to attend more important business.
Explainer: What are Zones?
Policy Zones are the foundational democratic organs of the Union. These include the Activities Zone, which deals with clubs and societies, the Education Zone, which deals with the learning experience at UCL, and the Welfare and Community Zone, which deals with issues in halls and student wellbeing. Any student can attend these meetings and submit policies, but only officers and reps designated to the zone can vote, most of whom are elected in October’s Rep Elections. One way of thinking about the Policy Zones is to consider them as the Union’s lower house, whereas Union Executive is its upper house, responsible for ratifying policies passed by the zones.
And the Ugly...
On a more fundamental level, however, the greatest barrier to making change in the Union is the Union itself.
Last year, The Cheese Grater revealed how a Union “deep state”, comprised of accountants, directors, and executives who sit on the senior management team often pulled the strings from behind closed doors.
But Monday’s Union Executive meeting revealed how senior management’s culture of risk-averse thinking and excessive red tape continues to hinder the Union’s political decision-making processes.
Presenting his policy to create a Postgraduate Sports Rep and merge the remaining Sports Rep elections with the main election period in March, Sports Officer Jack Sibeon said: “Postgraduate representation in sports is not where it should be at all… It’s a problem that we need to address, and it’s a problem that the current system isn’t addressing.”
The proposal would allow new reps to enter office at the same time as the Sports Officer so they could begin hammering out their priorities over the summer.
He said the changes he and his predecessor introduced to the Sports Rep system over the past two years, namely, by allocating each rep with an issue-specific portfolio, had already made it substantially different from other reps for arts, societies, and volunteering.
He added: “The advantage of this [proposal] is that we’re taking a role that is succeeding, which is having engagement, and we’re capitalising on that… Let’s put it in an election that has better funding, is better publicised, [and] has better scope of participation.”
Unfortunately, members were unable to vote on the policy despite having spent 45 minutes debating the small print because the proposal involved a change in the Union byelaws and required a different process, but this was not flagged until it was too late.
Sibeon, who noted he had been working on this policy since the end of last year, expressed frustration over the bureaucratic complexities that barred the vote. He said: “In many ways, I understand and appreciate the position of staff.
“But I think where I am more critical is that there was too much of a delay for me to be told, and it just wasn’t as clear as it could have been.”
The Upshot
Monday’s Union Executive ended up overrunning by 20 minutes despite having achieved nothing at all. One sabb said the meeting was “tense”, whilst another attendee bluntly described it as a “shit show”.
We spoke to Sibeon after that meeting concluded. He lamented the fact that members weren’t able to vote on either proposal and said many of the sabbs’ concerns about his policy were typical of an NGO’s fear of change and taking risks, resulting in nothing ever being done.
The meeting revealed the fault lines of the Union’s fragile political leadership, a strange coalition of six sabbatical officers with different priorities and communication styles, held together by an unelected bureaucracy with its own commercial agenda.
But there was also some recognition among the sabbs that excessive red tape is driving engaged students away and barring others from participating – something reps and officers have been saying for years.
Even the Union President Goksu Danaci admitted: “I can see it’s [part of] a bigger trend and it’s driving me insane as well.”
Welfare Officer Rachel Lim added: “This has been something all of us sabbs have discussed… policies taking too long, and it’s not something we’re happy with. I hope you don’t think we’re complacent in this situation.”
This should also give students some cause for cautious optimism, even if the bar is a tripping hazard in hell. As things stand – to paraphrase the late Benjamin Zephaniah – most students ignore Union politics because Union politics ignores most students. This sad state of affairs cannot change soon enough.
There is now a real, bottom-up attempt to change the face of student life at UCL. Across campus, reps and officers are chipping away at the Union’s immovable bureaucracy to make the student experience a little less rubbish. Those at the top must do all they can to aid these efforts rather than hinder them.
