A Week in Blackpool

Last week, I spent most of my time in Blackpool with 11 other Oxford students at NUS Conference. You might remember voting for NUS Delegates in Michaelmas; it's more likely, however, that you don't really know what NUS Conference is or why it's important. For most students, their greatest contact with NUS is through the discount card that they get at the start of the year or occasionally reading about it in the Newspaper. To most students, in a nutshell, NUS seems distant and irrelevant.

The biggest battle at last week’s conference was about tackling that head on and addressing how NUS can become more relevant to students around the country. This might sound rather pessimistic – as if NUS doesn’t do anything useful at the moment. That’s not the case. NUS Officers do a great job in representing the interests of students nationally. Look no further than the 2004 Top Up Fees vote when they managed to bring the government within five votes of defeat for the first time in seven years, or in the work they’ve been doing recently to increase transparency and fairness in the provision of student housing by Universities and private landlords. There are some issues – most often where government is concerned  - where NUS can really do things that OUSU, JCRs or MCRs could never manage.

However, recent years have seen the National Union’s policymaking process go from bad to worse, with special interests taking over to the detriment of ordinary students. This year, Conference considered governance reforms which were aimed at making the organisation more efficient, transparent and – most importantly – representative. It would have got rid of the unwieldy annual conference and introduced a more accessible Congress, where policy decisions would be focussed on outcomes instead of debate for the sake of it. Liberation campaigns would have been strengthened with more full time officers and dedicated support. There would have been more scrutiny over policy with individual conferences for each policy area. In short, the reforms sought to bring NUS up-to-date and more responsive to what's going on in Student Unions accross the Country.

Like any radical change, the proposals had their fair share of critics who accused the NUS leadership of “stifling democracy” and not consulting with Students properly (depite a year long consultation and numerous trips by NUS Officers to explain the changes to Student and SU Officer). In the end, the proposals were defeated by groups from the extreme left of the student movement who, in my opinion, put their own concerns ahead of those of the NUS or of the students they were meant to be there representing. Despite the fact that 65% of the Conference voted for the changes, the proposals needed two-thirds to pass and those in favour of reform have been left scratching their heads wondering where to go next.

Nevertheless, the news wasn’t all bad. NUS now has a sensible Higher Education Funding policy for the first time in years, defined targets for its campaigning over the next year and a good set of new officers (including former CUSU President Wes Streeting who was elected as NUS President) to lead the organisation through to 2009.

The failure of the NUS Governance Reforms was a disappointment and one that has left the student movement in a weaker position as we enter a critical period for students in the UK. Next year, the government starts to review Higher Education Fees and, once again, the role of NUS is going to be essential. If we don’t have a National Union that is fit for purpose and able to deliver for the needs of its members, we stand to lose out again. The case for reform has never been stronger.