Wes Streeting for National President

Well, what a week. I am struggling to put into words just how grateful I am to each and every one of you who supported my campaign and elected me as the 52nd National President of NUS this week. I’ve got huge shoes to fill. The scale of the win provides a solid mandate for the year ahead - and a clear instruction to deliver on the commitments I gave to you.And so I must ask for your help again.

On Wednesday the Guardian reported that my election this week was ‘a move that will lend weight to the fight to modernise the union’. They were right - and that fight goes on.

Although the vote to ratify the proposed new constitution for NUS fell just short of the two thirds required, motions against the review and motions calling for us to start again with a blank sheet of paper were roundly defeated. We did not lose the argument about the case for reform and I don’t believe our membership have lost the will or determination to ensure that our union is transformed into the kind of representative, relevant and campaigning movement that students want it to be.

We have less than a year to go until the 2009 review of student fees and finance and so I believe we have less than a year to get this done and to get this right.

One person can’t change NUS. But you can. So I need all of you who want us to succeed to take on the mantle of NUS leadership. I’d be really grateful if you could spend a few minutes over the weekend and week head to drop me a message or e-mail telling me how YOU think we should proceed and where you think we could’ve done better. Don’t pull your punches on the latter - if we made mistakes then we apologise but we need to take it on the chin as well to ensure that we don’t let you down again.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you and I’m really looking forward to our future. I think it’s bright. I won’t let you down.

With gratitude and determination,

Your new campaigner-in-chief,

Wes

wes.streeting@nus.org.uk

Earlier this week, Gemma Tumelty and I led a ‘Great Higher Education Funding Debate’ at Methodist Central Hall in Westminster. Bringing together 160 student officers and representatives with leading politicians, academics, think tanks and journalists, we examined the impact of top-up fees so far and the future funding debate ahead.

Below, I reproduce a comment piece I wrote for the left wing think tank Compass. It is the first in a series of comments I will be writing about the funding debate taking place at conference. This one centres on what our policy agenda should be for the 2009 review. The seven principles I outline below can be found in amendment 506a in the funding debate at Annual Conference.

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Variable Fees: New Labour’s Worst Domestic Policy Mistake, argues Wes Streeting

(first published on Monday 18th February by Compass. See original article) 

Addressing a conference of student leaders last summer, Neal Lawson described variable tuition fees as ‘New Labour’s worst domestic policy mistake’ and he was right. For the past decade, Labour’s approach to student finance has been muddled, contrary to the Government’s stated aim of widening participation and confusing to the millions of full-time undergraduate students who’ve encountered one of the three systems that have been in operation in England alone during the past eleven years.

Equity and sustainability must be the key tests that apply to any funding system; on both counts the current system is a failure. While the market in fees is virtually non-existent so long as fees are capped at £3,000, let us imagine for a moment that the regime is taken to its logical conclusion: that the cap has been increased or lifted altogether. Within the cut-throat market of UK HE Plc. there would be big winners in the form of ancient and redbrick universities, able to price themselves at the top end of the market, and big losers in the form of modern universities and small and specialist colleges, struggling to compete. Labour Ministers should baulk at the prospect that, further down the line, spending per student could be greater in those institutions with the worst records on widening access and significantly lower in those institutions that are most successful in widening participation.

We have seen the futility of the market at work for two years now within the student support system. Rather than providing market incentives for students from working class backgrounds to apply to universities with the worst records at widening participation, the complexity of the system of bursaries, scholarships, grants and loans available has meant that they have had little impact on applicants’ choices and thousands of students are unaware of their entitlements.

With a few notable exceptions, it is widely accepted that the introduction of upfront tuition fees were the Achilles’ heel of Blair’s first botched attempt to reform higher education. As we approach the next General Election and the forthcoming review of the ‘top-up fee’ system in 2009, it is time for Labour to accept that variable fees are the Achilles’ heel of Blair’s second botched attempt and at the same time seize the opportunity that exists for a real debate about what kind of higher education system we want and how it should be funded.

I believe there are seven principles that should lie at the heart of the next reforms to student finance and funding following the 2009 review:

1) The expansion of higher education is necessary to ensure social justice and economic prosperity and must be funded accordingly. Labour was right to set the 50% target. The diversity of our higher education system is one of its greatest strengths and the entire sector must be funded fairly.

2) Higher education is a public good and the state contribution must rise to reflect this. The UK still lags behind other OECD countries in terms of the amount of public funding directed towards higher education. The Government should commit to increasing that contribution to match the OECD average.

3) Where graduates are to make a contribution to the cost of their tuition it should be based on earnings, not prices. ‘Why should the dustman pay for the doctor?’ asked those who justified the introduction of fees ten years ago. If we are to have a graduate contribution, I ask ‘why should graduates working in the public sector pay the same as someone who’s cashed in their degree to work in the private sector?’

4) Student support should be based on what they need, not where they study. The Government should abandon the notion that variable bursaries encourage access to top universities and instead ensure that students struggling financially receive the support they need, wherever they study.

5) There should be a structured business contribution to the costs of higher education. Business benefits enormously from higher education and must pay its fair share, not through tied funding that allows big business to impinge on academic freedom, but a structured contribution through the taxation system.

6) Upfront fees for part-time students should be abolished and financial support for part-time students should be equivalent to that offered to full-time students. Part-time students have been largely forgotten by the Government during the last 10 years, yet are often the very people that Labour wants to attract to university. It’s time to end upfront fees altogether and put in place a student support system that reaches those who need it most.

7) There should be a further review of postgraduate students support and the case for regulation of postgrad and international fees. Labour must ensure fair access to postgraduate opportunities and should seriously consider the regulation of postgraduate and international fees to ensure that students are paying a fair price and that the UK remains attractive to the international students who enrich our campuses and our country but are all to often treated as ‘cash cows’ by universities.

Some of Labour’s worst mistakes during the past decade have occurred when the Government has led without listening. It’s not too late for Labour to put in place a bold, radical and socially progressive model for higher education funding, but it will require ministers to enter the 2009 review with a genuine commitment to asking the big questions and taking on board answers they have so far been unwilling to hear.

Today I publish my extended manifesto for National President. It sets out in more detail than allowed by the 2-sided official manifesto published by NUS the themes, policies and campaigns I would deliver as National President. It expands on the four areas outlined in my original manifesto, but with added content and ideas - many of which have come from the people I have spoken to about NUS and about my campaign during the past couple of months.

I am standing as the candidate with the greatest experience of fighting - and winning - for students and as the candidate with the best knowledge of the further and higher education sectors; the candidate who will be able to deliver from day 1.

This term, although running for election, I have been continuing to deliver in my current role as VP Education. I’ve published a new Higher Education handbook for students’ unions, re-launched the anonymous marking campaign, run a national feedback amnesty, led a Great Higher Education Funding Debate, launched a new series of Education Information briefings for student reps, led a campaign to get unspent bursary funding into students pockets, taken part in a number of students’ union debates and conferences and continued to bang the drum for wide ranging reforms to NUS’ governance.

I am proud of my record as VP Education and believe it stands me in good stead to be an effective National President. With less than a fortnight to go until the election, I will be focusing on some key areas of my manifesto and setting out my stall as the candidate who is best equipped to lead our movement into the significant battles ahead.

Let me know what you think of the extended manifesto!

Wes

wes@wes4pres.org.uk

One of the key planks of my manifesto centres around making NUS - and the student movement at large - more representative and relevant to our increasingly diverse membership.

The NUS Liberation Campaigns, and more importantly liberation groups in colleges and campuses up and down the UK, do an outstanding job at ensuring that students from communities at the forefront of discrimination and prejudice are well represented and well equipped to facing those challenges head on. Just look at the latest initiative from the Disabled Students’ Campaign - ‘A Day in the Life’, highlighting the real life experiences of disabled students and how many and varied they are.

There are groups that remain consistently under-represented however: part-time students, mature students, international students and postgraduates. Although provision exists for these students within NUS’ structures they are relatively under-resourced, but absolutely vital if NUS and students’ unions are going to have any credibility moving forward. I am pleased that the NUS Governance Review goes some way to addressing these problems, creating a full-time international students’ officer and dedicated representation for part-time and mature students on the new Senate.

Much more needs to be done and I will be outlining some more of my ideas in the run-up to Annual Conference, but for now I just wanted to highlight a speech I delivered to the iGraduate Conference in Edinburgh last Friday. It focuses on the need for a responsive HE sector, but specifically examines the challenges facing international students.

You can read the speech here.

Let me know what you think!

Wes

wes@wes4pres.org.uk

With the NUS presidential election just weeks away, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that the dirty tricks and smears are now well underway. This article, in the National Student newspaper, makes a series of unfounded allegations based on a smear posted by Man Met sabb Kevin Atkinson on the NUS APL mailbase last month and some unattributed comments ‘off the record’ from ‘members of Labour Students’.Kevin Atkinson now claims that this article ‘proves’ everything he has said about this election - perhaps that’s because the article only quotes Kevin Atkinson and some supposed ‘members of Labour Students’, was written by a member of the Save NUS Democracy Campaign and didn’t give either Gemma or I a proper chance to comment. So let me clear a few things up:

The ‘arrangement’ was announced by Gemma Tumelty at Labour Students’ Political Weekend on November 17 2007

Really? If the two ‘Labour Students’ quoted in the article said so then it must be true… Well, no, actually. Gemma was at the NUS Disabled Students’ Committee presenting on changes to NUS governance on November 17th. Followed (I am told) by a trip to see the Sound of Music. On Sunday November 18th Gemma was introducing her partner to her parents for the first time. If you’d like to corroborate this, then I suggest phoning the NUS press office for comment from Gemma’s Mum!

I doubt these individuals really exist. You can find out more about the ‘independence’ of the journalist below.

At the time of going to press I had declined to comment

I have received one voicemail from the National Student Newspaper and at no point in that message were these allegations referred to, only that they wanted to speak to me about my campaign. I have been so busy lately (getting on with my job!) that I didn’t call back but at no point did I receive a further call, email or any other correspondence from National Student newspaper. You can see why below…

Kevin Atkinson is speaking out as an elected officer and NEC observer from the ‘inner circle’ or ‘upper echelons’ of NUS…

What the article fails to mention is that Kevin Atkinson is a leading figure in Ciarán Norris’ campaign for National President. Kevin is an NEC observer and has attended almost as many meetings as Ciarán Norris (not very many). Hardly an impartial source - in fact Kevin is so happy that he has been circulating the link to the article, which is now a part of Ciarán’s Facebook group.

And Tom Walker is just another impartial reporter…

Err, no. Tom Walker is author of such impartial articles as ‘It’s time for students to take back control of NUS’ in which he quotes none other than Respect-backed NUS presidential candidate Ruqayyah Collector and Rob Owen who is running for… VP HE! Tom was also presidential candidate in the Student Respect supported ‘Take Back Your Union’ slate at City University. So enthusiastic was Student Respect’s support for Tom and his friends that Respect NUS NEC member Rob Owen turned up at the count last week! Totally impartial then!

Finally the actual allegations of a ‘stitch up’…

People will draw their own conclusions I guess.

I have not been shy in the past of supporting candidates over Organised Independents, or even running myself as I did when I first ran for VP Education! At the end of the day, we could’ve engineered a big fight, but what for? I am supporting the candidates listed on my website because I believe they’re the best candidates for the job and I hope that’s why my supporters are backing me. What’s wrong with moderates working together to ensure that NUS stays on track, particularly when big questions are hanging over us about the future of the organisation?

It’s not as exciting as a good conspiracy theory or attempt to paint me a murky, shadowy, underworld figure plotting world domination with Gemma Tumelty. But it’s a damn sight more accurate than a biased article, written by biased journalist, on the basis of a single biased source, trying to bias an election.

Wes
wes@wes4pres.org.uk  

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