AS REFORM GOES, UCL Union is in dire need of change. This year marked the arrival of the Governance Review the purpose which is clear – to examine how the organisation is run and how it can be improved. Whilst certainly an honourable intention, a review cannot hope to improve democracy, accountability and representation at the Union if those proposing it don’t do so too. The Sabbs may be keen to spout on about how the constitution is outdated and how the review will change all this but they’ve neglected to mention how their bad handling of it is going to do more damage than good.
Misrepresentation
The governance review must be formulated by student representatives; in this case the Union Executive. However some of the part-time Exec have complained that they have been barely involved in governance consultations. Even when they had been consulted, they were “excessively patronized”. Worse still, whilst the Part Time Exec have been given the cold shoulder, the previous year’s Sabbs (who originally proposed the Governance Review) have been heavily involved. This of course being the same Sabbatical team that last year blatantly disregarded the constitution and had no concept of what representation actually meant (see Cheese Grater passim).
The feeling is clearly that the Sabbaticals have been dominating the entire review process; one Exec member told The Cheese Grater “It really did feel like they were taking us through the motions.” In an outstanding fuck up, Nick Barnard (M&C) managed to illustrate this to all of his colleagues. At the end of one executive wide brainstorming session, Barnard got up and showed the group a diagram that had supposedly been put together from their ideas…except it hadn’t. The very same diagram was accidentally slipped into the notes of a colleague earlier that day and therefore it could not have been drawn in the break.
The most alarming fact is that the Sabbs had wanted the whole thing to go forward in parts rather than as a whole. As well as changes in the structure of the Union, this year also sees a move to electronic voting. However, KitSite, the company providing e-voting facilities are only able to handle voting for the 16 executive positions. This explains why elections this year will not include any constituent positions (such as that of Sports Officer) but there is no valid reason for only Sabbatical roles to be run. However, in a motion to Union Council at the start of the year, that is exactly what the Sabbs intended to do. This motion was proposed in a farcical fashion and generally went down like a cup of cold sick. So confusing was the original proposal, that the Sabbs, part time Exec and the General Manager all had different interpretations of its meaning. Robbie Swale (CSSD) didn’t even realise its full extent. Worse still Zoë Davies managed to anger the part time Exec by suggesting they were not flexible enough in the current system and would not be able to work with the Sabbs in the new structure.
This caused so much consternation that one part time Exec member threatened to resign, with others not far behind her.
Obsolete
Thankfully the motion was amended so and all positions will be run. But this doesn’t make it a non-issue; had they succeeded the Union would enter a new governance structure with old sabbatical roles. Even the Sabbs can see how problematic this would be; both Zoë Davies and Nick Barnard suggested their positions should be abolished under the new system. Their successors would be stuck in roles that can’t operate properly within a new structure as well as having to adhere to a constitution which has no relevance to them. Whilst the majority of Sabbatical officers don’t seem to have much success at anything, next year’s lot won’t even have the chance to fail properly.
Career mover
So just why are the Sabbs so keen on pushing through the Governance review in parts? Why bother to hurry in the process for the start of next year when they can wait one further year, go through with full consultations and have the new executive roles prepared for the next elections? Presumably, as the year ends, the Sabbs are getting worried about what they have actually achieved in their term in office. Apart from a lousy ‘Hands Off Our Wednesdays’ campaign (er…whose hands exactly?) there isn’t much other than two resignations, one ridiculously self important and the other a deception of the entire Union. Perhaps then the current Sabbs want nothing more than to add ‘overseeing a governance review’ to their CVs. If we let them, they might just get to add that they killed off democracy at the Union too. MR