In which Nickers talks about his excursion to National Council as one of the South East Reps

National Council Report – Monday 14th November 2005, Coventry

I wasn’t really sure what to expect at the first National Council but what occurred didn’t surprise me. It was a mix of useful motions and sensible debate piled next to bureaucracy for the sake of appearing clever and profiling veiled as representation. I deliberately took a bit of a step back on the day so I could gauge how it all worked and I hope my report doesn’t seem overly negative or positive – my feelings are very much mixed about the event.

As a heads up to exactly what National Council is…

“National Council directs the work of the NEC and can hold them to account for their activities and responsibilities during the year between Annual Conferences. The Council meets at least three times a year and can ratify decisions taken at liberation and other conferences, as well as making recommendations to Conference regarding the accounts and estimates. Any ratifications that are not passed by National Council revert to the next Annual Conference. National Council may also pass policy, in exceptional circumstances.”

…As taken from the NUS Website. One thing I was surprised at was the absence without apologies of many NEC – the blasé attitude of some towards the event suggested that the ability of Council to hold officers accountable wasn’t quite as forceful as officer online leads you to believe.

Here’s a bit of a rundown of the day…

The first point of business was the Election of the Chair, and this went to Ben Ward who was also chair last year. One of Ben’s things seems to be added structure to Council and the agenda moved to some By-laws that he’d worked upon. These all seemed very sensible to myself – they reminded me in many ways of our own Standing Orders at RUSU, but what occurred was that they were applied for this Council only and then revoked so people could have a proper look. This was slightly frustrating – the issue was one of accessibility. The by-laws stated that all paperwork should be available in good time for Council, but the by-laws themselves weren’t and this became a debate. How far you can criticise something that aims to improve access for being inaccessible I’m not sure… I hope that the by-laws do get passed without too much fuss for good next time. Also at this time was a discussion of whether NEC can vote at Council. The first democratic NUS Event I went to was last year’s Extra-Ordinary conference in Wolverhampton and I can remember the NEC right to vote being removed then (subject to ratification at Conference). This was done but not written in the constitution so NEC did vote throughout the meeting. To me this seems like working in the framework of the law but not its spirit – though fair play to Sian and Veronica who chose to abstain from all votes as Council requested the NEC to do. The agenda was changed and the affiliation of new areas was bought forwards so that Bubble could have his vote as Areas Rep… the vote was unanimous and Katie and I cheered.

So the first 40 minutes or so felt like just an exercise in bureaucracy and showing off who knew the constitution best. But it did get better…

Commission Sessions

So that questions could be asked about the Report and Plan, Council split into groups for the next section. Firstly there were 3 discussions: Welfare, Strong Students’ Unions and Liberation Campaigns. Katie attended Welfare, Claire went to Strong Students Unions and I attended the last one and everyone else in the room was a liberation officer or on the committee… I have a huge interest in Liberation work, but it’s not my background so I didn’t feel I could engage fully at this session. However, Sian and Jo Salmon updated us on what was going on in the priority campaigns. The Women’s campaigns are aimed at fighting the gender pay gap and supporting women in the workplace and a pro-choice campaign. Sian described her work for Student’s With Disabilities (SWD) including the Sexual revoLOOtion stuff about providing disabled toilets with condoms and sanitary products, involvement in student activities for disabled students and ‘Don’t Diss my ability’ which campaigns against negative attitudes about SWD. There wasn’t really much controversy about these campaigns as work seems to be going well on both. We had some NUS coffee and reconvened in two groups ‘Education’ and ‘Society and Citizenship’. I went to Education with Katie. I was somewhat annoyed that the whole conversation seemed to be about why Julian Nicholds (VP Education) was referring FE questions to Ellie Russell (VP FE) when she wasn’t there. If the best response is to be given surely the best person needs to give it?

After Lunch the National Treasurer Joe Rukin gave a statement from Will Page who officially offered his resignation. I don’t think this came as much of a surprise, but I must say that I don’t think some of his comments about the NEC weren’t really fair, I’m not sure anyone should have to declare which political party they vote for if it doesn’t affect the way they vote, debate or represent students.

We had updates on the Welfare, Education and FE campaigns which was interesting, but not much new from the Regional Conferences. All the information is on t’Website so I’m not going to replicate it all here.

We moved into the Motions session next, which, as expected was the most exciting bit of the day by far. The motions can be summarised as…

1) Access to National Council – for Council to become more accessible. I voted FOR and it PASSED.
2) Stagecoach and NUS Extra – this caused the most debate and points of information. Stagecoach a well known funder of the homophobic pro-Section 28 campaign has a discount on NUS Extra currently. The motion was to remove them. I voted FOR (with some waving of my hand) and it PASSED.
3) Support for Terence Higgins Trust (THT) – the motion was for NUS to support the removal of luxury item status from condoms as championed by the THT. This would reduce or remove the VAT on them. I voted FOR and it PASSED.
4) 7/7 terrorism attacks – this was a motion of thanks to the NEC for their work on the post 7th July response. I voted FOR and it PASSED
5) No to terrorism and Racism – in a similar vein, supporting the NEC’s response and re-iterating the dedication of the movement to work against racism and terrorism. I voted FOR and it PASSED and quite right too.
6) OFFA – campaigning to support the Office of Fair Access and increase its powers. I voted FOR the motion PASSED.
7) NUS Successes – I liked this one, a mandate for the NEC to talk about when they do cool and groovy things. I don’t think we do concentrate on the good works enough – they do happen but we aren’t really told (unless you’re facing disaffiliation). The motion PASSED and I voted FOR.
8) Blogs – A moan at officers who don’t update their blogs and a crackdown on it. To be honest, I have an issue with the idea that a blog every two weeks that says nothing is better than one every month that is done properly. Sian noted that people moan about the number of blogs, but not their contents, and it does seem that it’s more accountancy than accountability. I don’t think this was really considered in the motion, but some NEC (Sian, Gemma, Dan Randall and Wes particularly) do manage to blog regularly and fully. I ABSTAINED and the motion PASSED.

At the last section, the Reports Motions there was a motion to censure Gemma Tumelty for organising Regional Conferences during Ramadam. Jamal spoke against the motion and it was withdrawn.

And that was that! I then went to Warwick University to meet with my friends Jenny and Maria and had a very nice evening. If anyone’s got any questions then give me a shout.

Nickers