Wes Streeting for National President

With sabbatical elections currently taking place across the country I got to thinking about how NUS runs its elections process. It’s something I talked to people up and down the country about in January and, more recently, at a number of NUS events.

One of the most accurate criticisms I’ve heard about NUS is that too often it fails to practice what it preaches, quick to finger wag with ‘best practice’ aimed at students’ unions but slow to act to get its own house in order. This is particularly true when it comes to how NUS conducts its elections.

We encourage students’ unions to publicise elections well in advance: encouraging as many people to stand for election as possible, explaining how to stand and when to get your forms in, publishing opportunity profiles for the positions available and ensuring that rules are well known and create a level playing field for all candidates.

Aside from a section in the NUS Democracy Guide sent out to students’ unions in the summer and a mealy-mouthed section in the formal Notice of Conference (known as Conference Document 1 or CD1) buried away on Officeronline no one could really claim that we ‘publicise’ elections. Nor do we publish opportunity profiles, explain the contractual terms and conditions or have anything like a set of rules that creates a level playing field for all candidates.

It’s not just the nominations process that can be intimidating and off-putting. NUS elections have no spending limits or rules surrounding conduct. This means that those with more money available have an advantage because they have the resources to send out mailings, produce flyers and gimmicks for the conference itself and if they’re in a political group with lots of experience or have good mates on the NEC they will have lots of pearls of wisdom handed down so that they have the cutting edge over other candidates.

A section has now gone up on Officeronline with some information about the elections, but much more needs to be done. In my submission to the NUS Governance Review I set out what I believe to be the strong case for reform of our election conduct and rules.

As National President, I would work with the new Elections Committee to transform the way we conduct elections. There are difficulties around how election expenditure could be effectively monitored and capped without candidates exploiting the rules to get their opponents disqualified. Nonetheless I would look seriously at placing greater financial restrictions on elections including a cap on expenditure because I believe that finance should never be a barrier to participating in our democracy.

There are also things I think we could do to ‘level up’ the playing field for candidates, including:

• An elections microsite containing information about how and when to stand for election, opportunity profiles and the relevant forms and nominations templates available for download
• An opportunity for every candidate to have their own election page online, containing their manifesto, biog., blog and an opportunity to put up an audio or video address
• An opportunity for every candidate to have access to an ‘e-mailing’ to every conference delegate
• A guide to campaigning in NUS elections, giving some basic advice and an idea of what to expect
• Working with the Disabled Students’ Campaign to ensure that every candidate can produce materials and information that is accessible to every delegate without incurring financial costs
• Hustings for every full time position - not just National President - so that delegates get to put every candidate through their paces

Much of this would cost little on the part of NUS, but would make a huge difference to engaging both delegates and candidates in a more healthy, open and accessible debate.

On accessibility: in spite of a (really excellent) guide by the Disabled Students’ Committee, I have fallen foul of their guidelines for an accessible manifesto, for which I unreservedly apologise. I asked someone to volunteer to quark it up for me and because of regional conferences I did not have time to make changes to the design before the close of nominations. I will do my best to make sure that I comply with the remaining guidelines.

Let me know what you think and if you have any further ideas about how we could make NUS elections fairer.

Wes
wes@wes4pres.org.uk  

With just four weeks to go until Annual Conference it felt like the campaign really began this weekend as I was invited to take part in a Presidential Debate at the NUS Wales Annual Conference in Llandrindod Wells in mid Wales.

All four candidates for NUS National President were invited. Two sent apologies, leaving a head to head debate between myself and Ciarán Norris. I really enjoyed the debate - a great warm up for the informal hustings which will be held on the first night of Annual Conference in Blackpool on 1st April. We took a range of questions across a variety of issues including support for the NUS nations, our personal political views, education funding, the Welsh language and our priorities. At the end of the conference we also took part in a Whose Line Is It Anyway-style roleplay where I played the driver of a broken down ‘car of NUS democracy’ and Ciarán was the AA man sent to identify the problems. It was good fun and we managed to get in some pretty cringe-worthy lines about the ‘lack of transparency’ with the car windows, faulty breaks preventing the car moving forward and Ciarán’s line about the steering always veering to the left! You had to be there I guess!

Throughout my time as a student activist and NEC member I have always supported the work and campaigns of the NUS nations. For example, as President of my students’ union I supported calls to move the National Demonstration to Cardiff to stop top-up fees in Wales and took one of the largest contingents to the demo in 2004. I was the only presidential candidate to attend either the NUS-USI demo outside the Stormont Assembly in Belfast last term or the ‘Drenched in Debt’ demo outside the Welsh Assembly (despite the best efforts of Railtrack to stop me getting there at all!). Recently, I started a new series of Education Information bulletins that contain information relevant to officers across the whole UK and called for an independent complaints adjudicator for Northern Ireland to support the work currently being undertaken by NUS-USI on this.

Some people think that NUS should only hold demonstrations in London - I say we should hold them wherever you need us to be! I am conscious that unions and associations outside England often feel distant from the work of NUS UK. As National President, I will support the nations, whilst respecting their autonomy.

Finally, I couldn’t end this blog without offering my congratulations to Ben Gray and Carl Harris, who were re-elected this weekend as President and Deputy President respectively of UCMC/NUS Wales as well as Gurjit Singh and Liam Burns who were elected as President and Depute President of NUS Scotland.

It’s no secret that I hoped to see my longstanding friend and colleague Josh MacAlister elected as Scottish President. Josh is a dedicated campaigner for students’ rights and has been since I first met him when he played a leading role in getting Edinburgh University Students’ Association affiliated to NUS a few years ago. I’m sorry that NUS Scotland will not benefit from his experience, dedication and passion, but I know that as National President I will be able to work with all those elected to take forward that which unites us: a steely determination to defend and extend the rights of students.

Finally, congratulations also to Jo Roberts, Sarah Watson, Jill Little and James Alexander whose terms come to an end this year!

Wes

Welcome to my brand new website. I want to say a massive thanks to Thomas Graham from Edinburgh University for putting the design together for me! It’s a simple wordpress blog but aside from my regular blog on Officeronline I’m not that used to it yet, so bear with me if any glitches or teething problems occur.

Over the coming weeks I will be updating this regularly with news, blogs and sections from my extended manifesto, which I will be making available to delegates at Annual Conference. Please send across any thoughts, feedback etc. to wes@wes4pres.org.uk.

Thanks for visiting!

Wes