Hello everyone and can I say how delighted I am to be able to close this event today. I’ve not been here for the whole event but I’d like thank on behalf of the national union the guest speakers, workshop presenters and organisers for what I know from feedback has been a stimulating and inspiring event.

It wasn’t actually until I sat down to write this speech when I had some time during national council this week that the realisation hit me that this would be the last time that I would address this group of officers and general managers. So perhaps unsurprisingly I got thinking about the first time I got to speak at one of these. In some ways it doesn’t feel like five minutes since some of us were first there in Westfield, debating and discussing the future for a strong student movement. But at the same time it feels like light years away. Since then I’ve been all over the country, talking to officers, managers, students, MP’s and stakeholders about the kind of NUS we need to have, the sort of movement we need to see, and the kind of society we need to build.

The last two years have been challenging, stressful, empowering and liberating for me. The ups and downs have been extreme to say the least and certainly I know that my life has been changed fundamentally by the student movement, and changed for the better, no matter what I might say after a few gin and tonics. Because of course that’s one of the best things about we do. We transform student’s lives, individually and collectively.

And fundamental to that transformation are student officers- and principally presidents. Officers leave our unions empowered, equipped with a diverse and unique set of skills. Often we influence and change their value set, challenge their view of the world and realign their whole future and career plans.

That’s why at my very first event here I talked about why it was necessary to challenge the simplistic ‘easy’ notion of staff as ideologically empty civil servants. I said it was a lie that should be exposed rather than a protocol to be protected. I said that students unlike councillors and MP’s do not have a set of politics to be implemented. They have a set of ideas and thoughts to be developed and challenged. I argued that it was just as much the role of managers to debate their ideas, challenge them and change them within our values as a democratic movement as it is to simply implement instructions. It’s without doubt the role of managers to prepare and brief officers for their environment and year in office, but it’s as much the role to help officers question their environment, their assumptions, their education and their world- and to change it.

The student movement, and I mean the whole student movement must admit and accept it’s political role, and I mean staff as well as officers. We cannot go on pretending that the activities of commercial consumption and student development are free frrm political content – they are not, never have been, and never will be.

That’s why I have prioritised building a real working relationship with General Managers. Let me address GM’s in the room directly- I have to say when I first got elected I was terrified of coming to speak to you. I knew you were suspicious, I knew your were wary. But I have to say that over the last 18 months I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the support that you’ve given to the national union, in a time of great difficulty, in a time of rapid change and upset. And from the very bottom of my heart I want to say a personal thank you to you all, for all the support that you’ve given me as an individual and as the leader of the student movement.

I’ve realised the absolute crucial need for NUS to have a tight and working relationship with general managers, and I’m certainly proud of how we’ve managed to develop this over the last year. And in the future we need to continue and develop that relationship and talk to both elected officials and staff in unions, and also back to the national union, you should all be able to access and discuss the direction of our national union not just with me and my elected colleagues but also with our staff.

Of course I’m more than aware that in some cases there have been considerable difficulties with the relationship between officers and staff. We know the tensions of being an activist and being a trustee. We know the tension of wanting to work in partnership, but the bottom line being that managers are employed by officers- not the other way around. The balance of ‘controlling’ senior management and being their support and partner in decision making can be a source of role conflict and tension for anyone on a ‘board’, never mind for student trustees.

And despite guides, protocols, training and models, that boundary between roles will never be clear and can never be clear. Staffing protocols manage conflict, not communication. They differ between every union. And I still see officers, under pressure from their electorate to have some democratic input into services, accused unnecessarily of meddling in managers’ work. In our best unions we see regular discussion and negotiation over respective roles and responsibilities. We still have yet to solve the true tensions over who officers are accountable too, their members? How do they balance their member’s views with reality in the institution? How do we deal with officers sucking up to their VC when block grants are up for discussion- the fear of biting the hand that feeds? How do we deal with debates such as Coca Cola?

I’m more than aware of the difficulties. I’m aware of staff who lose roles or responsibilities because they’ve made a mistake. I’m aware that staff often have difficulties with officers. And you will know that I’ve said things that have been challenging or maybe even critical over staff and GM’s. I won’t apologise for that …… But what I would say is that we do need to move forward.

The AMSU initiative to create a code of standards for GM’s based on roles and realities is welcomed by NUS. And over the last few months using our ‘presidential residential’ training event, we’ve been taking suggestions and feedback to formulate and create an officer led, officer decided version of this protocol. I hope that this will begin to allow us to work through some of those tensions and problems both locally and nationally.

However what I do believe in is not the traditional view of how staff should work with their officers. I believe in a strong, fair and open relationship, grounded in our values. I believe in a relationship where officers are committed to allowing managers to succeed- and managers ensuring officers can succeed. That is the kind of relationship that I’ve been building and developing with Andy. I want to see the role of managers grow and expand, to become advocates for the movement, a driver for our policy and influence, accurate, supportive, passionate communicators who take and develop our policy remit, our elected and driven leaders and our work across the board.

Andy and I have built a trusting relationship built on different roles; 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.

That’s not to say it’s been easy, that the road is running totally smoothly. I’m currently involved in one of the most contentious processes within so many unions across the country. I’m doing Andy’s appraisal. It’s the first time, not just for me but also for the organisation. I’m finding it tricky, there’s lots of discussion to occur. Lets be honest the student movement is a complicated and sophisticated place; the politics and policies are often complex, the environment full of unspoken rules and smoky stories. I doubt there’s a new manager in Britain- not least Andy- that doesn’t think there’s a lot still to do learn after their first year.

But before I go I want to go back to where I started way back in 2004. NUS is and should remain a student led organisation– and actually yes I’ll say it, a student run organisation- not because we are in denial about who does the work, but because to be democratic and politically controlled means it is run by students. Students aren’t stupid- the fact that Patricia Hewitt runs the health service doesn’t mean she’ll sew me up after a road accident any more than saying “students run the union” means that students will think managers don’t exist. The student movement is run by students. And long may it be so.

NUS, let me tell you now, is run by students. This doesn’t preclude working closely with other organisations, recognising their experience and expertise are of great value and further that the resources they commit to a specific issue are greater than NUS alone can allocate. Were proud to have a strong history of working with other campaign and pressure groups and will continue to ensure that our strategy ensures working with all organisations in the student family to win for us all, but always to win for students first and primarily. Working with AMSU and NUSSL can only benefit the student movement, provided of course, that democratic integrity and student control are maintained. And when people say to me that processes, meetings and democracy get in way of getting on with deliverables and objectives, I say this- the positive outcomes of student input are often just as important as the process of being involved and being democratic in the first place.

Eighteen months ago, we started to change NUS, structurally, financially, democratically. I was long overdue. We made massive gains but we still have a long way to go. NUS is always at it’s best when were talking about education; about student living conditions; about discrimination in education; about lack of human rights and educational opportunity abroad; and about defending student union autonomy.

And you know my view on this. We need a new framework for debates about the rights of students. I’m sick of hearing that unions should do what students want. Rubbish. You can’t have everything you want. Our job- locally, nationally and in the new world internationally, is to defend, extend and improve the rights of students. And that means inducting and training our officers to act politically – to discuss openly what they view the rights and priorities of students to be, and to invite debate and criticism of those positions from the members they represent.

And in there lies a paradox for me. Confidence in our national political structures is at an all time low. Participation is poor, accountability a sham. Yet on the whole thanks to the quangofication and managementitis of British politics and public services, on the whole the country is run better.

And when I think about this, I think about NUS. People tell me that NUS used to have no discernable management but was overtaken by politics. Well let me tell you, that may be true, and we are taking steps to address it. But anyone that thinks that NUS will end up free of politics and overrun by management is mistaken. My job, our job, your job, is to have managers improving our politics- and our politicians improving our managers. And so I say to every officer in this room- what have you done this week to make your managers’ jobs easier, more rewarding, more challenging. To make your union better run, with more efficient processes, deliverables and planning. And to every manager in the room, I ask you what have you done this week to improve the politicians in your union- better able to advocate for students, to challenge, to initiate or resist real change, to make a difference to students’ lives.

Let me close on my vision for NUS. Democratic, political. A movement that is strong in the face of attack from our enemies, whilst strengthening our claim to be involving, democratic and mutual. Run by students, for students, in the interests of students. One that develops activists as well as officers. One that organises around campaigns and representation, as well as servicing our members and our unions. One that supports officers to be challenging advocates, as well freeing up the talents of our staff to be creative and dynamic. One that leaves the objectives and the deliverables to managers- and puts rights and politics into to the forefront of officers.

My driver for all this is me.

Look at what this movement has done to and for me. The student movement is responsible for making me who I am today, and I’m grateful. And I want to think that anyone; from Sheffield to Southend, from private school to bog standard comp; can come into contact with our movement and be transformed- imbued with our values of democracy, equality, collectivism, celebrating diversity, making a difference, and bold enough; to initiate or resist change. That’s been my purpose. And I hope it’s yours too. I hope I’ve succeeded, I hope you will too.

For the last time – thank you

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