Good afternoon all, before I start I think it’s worth saying how valuable and interesting I think this seminar has been – if I’m honest I would have to say that ‘Change Management’ isn’t at all what drew me into the student movement. But, I‘ve found all our sessions and discussion to be thought provoking and stimulating. Now I don’t think for one second that I could out-do the management speak and governance theory that we’ve heard for the last two days.

What I’m going to do is run through some of my experiences over the past two year, the ups, the downs, the lowers and deep rooted depression. I jest of course!!

Over the last year I’ve instigated major change in the democratic environment at NUS. As most of you will know most of this has been done on instinct rather than theory.

So, what I thought I would do is give you a very personal view on some of my experiences as someone who has been through a large scale democratic reform process. Tough decisions, sometimes good, sometimes bad and occasionally accidental.

When I took up office in NUS I knew that everything wasn’t rosey, I was aware of disaffection amongst the membership and that the finances were a bit rocky.

Yet this was, in no way, an adequate account of the reality. When I stepped over the threshold of my office in Holloway Road I saw the real horror of what our union, of 5 million members had become.

The interesting thing for me, and I’m sure many of the GM’s can remember this, is that I really wasn’t very popular when I won my election.

Conference had unexpectedly elected me. I wasn’t in favour with officers or general managers. The NUS staff team were wary to say the least.

I had to prove myself against a student movement that, thankfully, was willing to listen.

The reason I bring this up is that when I won NUS President people felt threatened, there was great concern about where NUS would go next, and what I would do in office.

Now, 2 years down the line it strikes me as extremely reminiscent of those in our movement who become unhappy with their elected officials, who are threatened by someone with new ideas and a fresh perspective.

Of course the reality in those first few months of my Presidency was that I had nothing to lose, no chance at that time of gaining a second term, and so that gave me the freedom to do what I believed was right, rather than that was popular. And luckily or not for me it turned out to be the popular thing too and I’m still convinced it was the right thing to do.

Now we are where we are. I set about leading a whole scale reform of the national union. We started internally restructuring our senior management team, selling NUS HQ, making the decision to move the offices to a split site, with looking into the more with NUSSL. We refocused the organisations priorities putting FE on the top of the agenda, although the fight against fees had to remain high on the agenda, a prime example of balancing real and political priorities, we thought about our parliamentary lobby work, and direction, and of course we took the bold step of the beginnings of a creation of a new income stream, that would support our national finances and well as local students unions in the form of NUS Extra.

But everyone really knew where the real battle was, with NUS democratic reform. Something on the agenda for many years, and something that will remain no doubt on the agenda for many years, long after I’ve moved on.

Now what we did, Conference reform, size, cost, length, zones, FE by FE alone, blogs, and so on, matters less in this environment, than the process we went through to get there. To be honest it took a lot of willpower, hard work and bravery.

An extraordinary conference, a wee bit of staging, a mass tour of students unions, repeated speeches, a wholesale lobbying campaign on the national executive committee, who bought in, but because of the buy in from students unions rather than the other way about. We’ve made a start but there is much more to be done, and later on I want to come back to what the next stage is, I know some people feel that the reform train has run out of steam, that the good will we’ve bought up from many of you, is beginning to run out, that’s why I want to talk to you about the vision for the future.

But before I move onto that I want to tell you a little bit about the relationship that I’ve been building up with Andy Grant our new National Director.

Following the whole scale change of senior management in NUS it struck me as vital that what we needed was strong, influential staff leadership. But I also wanted more than that. I wanted someone who would be an advocate for the national union and the student movement as a whole. I wanted someone who would challenge and drive, as well as serve. I wanted someone who would fit into the democratic environment of NUS. All of which probably led to surprise from many when I said straight from the offing that I wanted someone from outside the student movement.

Now firstly I have to say that I doubt that many of you would have wanted the job of NUS national dictator, I couldn’t imagine the applications process would be dominated by your CV’s, but what it was about in reality was bringing someone in with a different mindset, someone that would be willing to challenge 70 years of tradition, someone that would challenge me.

It comes back to what I began in my first ever speech at one of these events. That student union staff are political, that they operate in a political environment, that the notion of the civil servant was antiquated and should be challenged, but that all of that came back to the crucial idea that we are student unions, and we are and at all cost must remain for and run by students.

Yesterday I noticed some eyebrows rising when Andy stood up and challenged the speaker during the session on variable fees. I could see people thinking, hold on is that his role. Well fundamentally what else would the role of the NUS National Director be, simply a manager of staff time and resources, like a GM simply running a bar, well of course it can’t be what we need is an advocate for the movement, a driver, a fresh perspective and a passionate communicator.

That’s not to say that this is always easier. Having spent a year when for a minimum of several days a week I had to act up as the senior manager in the building, dealing with back problems, resource divisions, trade union disputes, on the biggest learning curve of my career. I have no shame in admitting that following the appointment I found it incredibly difficult to step back, refocus on being the student representative, and step out of the muddle of day to day management. A situation than many of you can probably relate too, back to the notion of ‘sabbagers’. Where managers feel threatened by officers, who seem to want to step onto their toes.

But Andy and I have a built a trusting and open relationship, he feeds into NEC mtgs, takes direction and follows it through, but also challenges, suggests and pushes for change. And it’s that relationship that is making NUS an organisation on the way up.

Anyhow, enough about that, I want to take the opportunity to talk to you about what next.

So the future, I’m going to concentrate on democratic reform. Put simply, the reform process is not over. There is still real concern that the NEC is too big, costs are difficult to control, and there is a real call for deeper involvement and improved accountability. The national union needs to evolve its structures to meet these challenges without losing sight of its values of collectivism, diversity and democracy.

“Sacred cows” litter the student movement, embodying the oft repeated irony that a movement whose leaders change every year and campaign for change in society are so wedded to structures that have largely remained unchanged since 1922.

Of course our diversity is what makes us strong, but it also weakens the collective unless NUS can find ways to ensure that all its members feel valued, serviced and part of the collective, harnessing that diversity of experience and culture to inform and arouse debate and action.

This is no small challenge, but we hope that you all recognise that it is a challenge worth taking on, and with 7 months left in office, no more elections to win, and no need to pretend I’m pleasing everyone all of the time, it’s certainly a challenge that I’m willing to take on.

So I want to take you briefly through 3 key areas were looking to move on, with the starting point being always that NUS must remain a political body, controlled by it’s members, student owned and student led, empowering students to develop and exhibit their politics and to ensure that it doesn’t alienate and waste talent.

So firstly the biggest ‘sacred cow’ of them all. The National Executive Committee. Year after year we see and hear frustrations about the NEC; year after year we have the debate over its size, and year after year were mandated to do something about its role and function. The stale old debate almost always tries to pit two competing models of the block of 12 against each other.

One views the block the block in its present form as a vital way of protecting political diversity, in our extremely diverse movement. The other side usually argues against political diversity as meaningful or relevant and argues for regionalisation of the block, partly as an attempt to revive some old style area involvement that brought with it all the advantages of localised campaigning and volunteering opportunities.

What is clear is that this debate has gone on for many years, and doesn’t ever seem to produce useful resolution. It also never moves us to the point where we can actually celebrate our diversity and that means both regional and political diversity.

That means that we must not choose. But what we would also suggest is that the role of national council and the national executive committee at a national level cannot operate in the way that student’s union’s councils and execs do, and that we must be honest about the functionality of our structures and the associated costs.

We are already moving to reform, increasingly orientating our work around our zones, in time budgets, and therefore accountability would be held within the zone, work would be developed with staff, improving the accountability of NUS’s officers, through work portfolios. Regional conferences and National Conference would focus on commissions inside which would to present the work of the groups.

Naturally NUS would follow the trade union model, in the vast majority of cases they have at Finance and General Purposes Ctttee sub committee that exists in order to be on top of all business and give areas the attention this needs. This smaller group is allocated responsibility for day to day financial and legal affairs. This is the current reality of the ‘NEC Management Team’ but needs to be formalised into the structure such that the membership can properly hold it to account, far closer to your traditional idea of an exec team.

In addition the ‘quality’ of the support given to the NEC in the rest of the union movement is different and were working to ensure there is finally staff support to allow NEC members to carry out their responsibilities effectively.

Secondly regional involvement. Currently, honestly the only real and formal way to get involved in NUS at present is by standing for the NEC. Following the decline of NUS Areas has meant that people’s first real involvement with NUS can all too often be seen as a cliff face of failing rather than a gateway to further involvement.

This has to change. It’s clear that we have to respond to the growing calls for more regional democracy and involvement, and do that whilst acknowledging that those who supported that in reality, our old NUS areas have now all but gone.

Once again this is back to the debate of the block of 12, political or regional. It’s a false choice.

This is separate to the NEC discussion, but the controversy over the size and make up of the NEC should not stop us implementing regional democracy. The time has come for regional committees. That can give students and officers a valuable opportunity to get involved with the planning, co-ordination and implementation of NUS’s work. They would not have policy making powers but would increase communication with CM’s. In addition smaller more local events can involve people in a more meaningful way, can be less intimidating, and will allow space for detailed discussions and social activity.

There would be merit in replicating the cultures of NUS’ nations, without devaluing the NEC or National Conference. Local training and briefing events backed up by a local staff and office infrastructure. Again this allows officers to get to know ‘their’ nus staff, which goes a long way to boosting credibility. If people get to know each other and develop a respect for each other it can only have a positive affect on NUS as a whole.

And thirdly it’s the concept of the network. The ‘networked society’ is all around us. There was a time when activists with a vision for a changed society saw student organisations as a key way to achieve and demonstrate change. The development of the internet as an example has changed this. The danger for organisations such as student unions and NUS is that it fails to harness such activism and passion – and the student movement becomes the last rather than the first port of call for passionate individuals who want to change the world.

Currently we only offer few and far opportunities for activists to network over certain issues, if were honest there is a tiny amount of time at national conference but nothing else.

We have to start using modern technology and staff intervention expertise to build networks of this sort all year round, harnessing concerns and activism as they arise. We will allocate the resources to the building of such a network, building our membership database of NUS online, liaising closely with professional bodies and external organisations. Initially there would not be the resource to fund them, but building networks of students focussed around campaigns, courses or interests must become a national function of NUS as well as a local function of Students Unions.

There is clearly much more to tackle, the debate rages on over individual membership, communication is on everyone’s agenda, the traditional moans over NUS Conference, from where we get to sit, to closing down the balcony, to capping the amount of cash election candidates get to spend Take the NEC vote away, give them it back, one CM one vote, NUS should follow the ultra vires laws, scrap factions, etc etc.

All interesting points, all in dire need of some resolution. But as far as I’m concerned with my time running out, it’s time to pick my fight.

I hope that’s given you an overview of where NUS is going with it’s thinking, and where the political debates are heading. I’ve concentrated upon democratic reform, yet there are large amounts of reform going on internally, I know Andy has touched upon parts of it, but were aiming to bring the two together to deliver for the movement as a whole. We need to focus on our prime purpose, a strong national voice for students and the development of democratic strong students unions; committed to improving conditions for present and future students. No one else is going to do this – and we need to stop thinking we can do everything.

Now I’ve given that overview I want to go back and talk again about me (it’s what national presidents are all about after all), and my experience of managing democratic reform.

Of course when I look back there are things that I’d do differently. My knowledge and skills are so much further than where they were a year ago,

But actually you get where you’re going when you get there, and I wouldn’t take back the decisions I’ve made. I believe NUS is an organisation on the way up, and of course there are still tough decisions to be made. Now I want to talk to the GM’s in the room. Firstly to say I appreciate some of the support some of you have given me, although at times I could have done with an awful lot more. However I think many of you would say that there have been positive changes in NUS.

Now lots of people over the years will take credit for different parts of it. But remember where this change process started, it started, it came from student officers. It came from me and my elected management team

When students officials can survive and flourish they can make bold and dramatic decisions. They will stick their neck on the line and go for it, and of course that can be more dramatic in the national union but it works locally too. Being a student officer has to be about more than just being a trustee.

So to conclude democratic change needs ideas, leadership, buy in, passion, support and most crucially, I’ve learnt, bravery. And if were all honest the bravest people in our movement, those who will challenge the cultural orthodoxy are our student officers. So let’s set them free to do so.

Thanks

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