Democratic Structures and Officer Team Reviews

Democratic Structures and Officer Team Reviews

Final Report Presentation7th Feb 2014

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

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

DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURES REVIEW

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

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Key Findings2 - Holding elected students to account

Strongly disagree

Disagree No opinion Agree Strongly agree0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

q23.a I want to hold elected stu-dents at the Guild to account for their actions / decisions

q23.b I feel I can hold elected stu-dents at the Guild to account for their actions / decisions

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

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

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

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Key Findings5 – Which methods would you be interested to be involved in – Focus

Group answers

0%2%4%6%8%

10%12%14%16%

CURRENT MODEL

Current Governance Structure

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

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

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

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

PROPOSED MODEL

The Proposed Model

Idea Formulation

Ordinary Students

Committees

Sabbs / Exec

Listening

Indicative and online voting

forum via Guild Website and App

Deliberating

General Assembly

(open to all)

Deciding or forwarding

Indicative VoteTaking both on-

line and Assembly votes

into account

Dependent on outcomes is

rejected/approved or sent to all-student vote for

final decision

Deciding or Ratifying

All-student vote

2 per year for ratification and communication

The Proposed Model

Idea Formulation

Ordinary Students

Committees

Sabbs / Exec

• 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

The Proposed Model

Listening


forum via Guild Website and App

• 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

The Proposed Model

Deliberating

General Assembly

(open to all)

• 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

The Proposed Model


Indicative Vote

Taking both on-line and Assembly votes into account


rejected/approved or sent to all-student vote for final

decision

• 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

The Proposed Model


All-student vote

2 per year for ratification

and communicatio

n

• 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

The Proposed Model

Idea Formulation

Ordinary Students

Committees

Sabbs / Exec

Listening


forum via Guild Website and

App

Deliberating

General Assembly

(open to all)


Indicative VoteTaking both on-

line and Assembly votes

into account


rejected/approved or sent to

all-student vote for final

decision


All-student vote

2 per year for ratification and communicatio

n

Officer Accountability Structures

• Current model seen as purely about disciplinary action – no real accountability

• Students have no access to officers except at forums

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

OFFICER ROLE REVIEW

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

Part-Time Officer Awareness

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10%

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60%

70%

0 1

2 3

4 5

6 7

8 9

10 11

12 13

Don't Know

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

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)

OFFICER ROLE REVIEW

Full-time officers

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

Full-time Officer Role Review

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10%

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60%

0 1

2 3

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6 7

8 9

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12 13

Don't Know

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

National Picture

No. of No. of students/

Sabbs Unions sabb

Mean 5.86 4330

Mode 4 7

5 3

6 3

Median 7 6

8 2

9 0

10 1

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

Specific Recommendations1. The Officer titles should be as straightforward as possible, to maximise

student understanding of the positions both at election and through the year.2. The ‘Vice President’ titles be removed and replaced with ‘Officer’3. 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

4. That the team is of a size to allow all officers to sit within the Trustee Board structure

5. 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.

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

Proposed Team and Role Titles

• President• Education Officer• Community Officer• Student Development Officer• Guild Affairs Officer• Welfare Officer• Sports Officer

PROPOSED GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE

Proposed Governance Structure

Thanks you very much for listening

Questions?

Documents

Democratic Structures and Officer Team Reviews