Preparing your Constitution

This article covers general tips about creating your students' union constitution and can be used in conjunction with the NUS/AoC Model Constitution.

What is a constitution for?

• A constitution is a legal document that sets out the activities and procedures of an organisation. You have to have a constitution before your union is recognised by other bodies – particularly your college governors and NUS.
• A constitution should ensure that a students’ union operates within the law, but should also provide a framework for it to operate effectively as a democratic student led organisation.
• Constitutions should be transparent and accessible for both union officers and the ordinary members.
• Constitutions should be seen as a tool to help student officers carry out their role, rather than simply a rulebook of what can and cannot be done.
• It should outline where and how your members can be involved and how the Executive can act on their behalf.
• Remember – being a legal document, the constitution protects your decisions provided they were arrived at by the method laid down in the constitution.
• The governors are ultimately responsible for making sure that your college is run in line with government legislation. The college’s constitution is in effect a document known as the “Instrument and Articles of Government”. Your College’s instrument and articles will probably include recognition of a students’ union and contain wording similar to the following:
  
  

  ‘A student union shall conduct and manage its own affairs and funds in accordance with a constitution approved by the Corporation and shall present audited accounts annually to the Corporation. No amendment to or recission of that constitution, in part or in whole, shall be valid unless and until approved by the Corporation’.

• These conditions only apply to unions in further education and sixth form colleges. They do not apply to sixth forms in schools or nursing colleges, so there is no legal responsibility for governors to fulfil. If however, the Principal and the governors, agree that a union should be set up, any agreement should set out the responsibilities for each group involved.
• Any changes your membership may wish to make to the constitution have to be approved by the governors. However, you should have a process within your constitution for agreeing changes democratically first. The governors cannot generally propose their own amendments to the constitution, as they are not members of the union.

NUS

To be an affiliated students' union of the National Union of Students you need:

• A regular source of income
• A democratic constitution
• An active student body that has worked under an appropriate constitution for at least 12 months

In additon to the above, your members need to have indicated, in line with the constitution, that they wish the union to be affiliated to NUS. This is a requirement for all types of colleges.

Keeping it Legal

In 1994, the Government wanted to place a number of restrictions on the activities of students’ unions so introduced a new Education Act, which contained a series of regulations governing their conduct.

Section 22 of the Act requires that the governing body of a college or university take such steps as are reasonably practicable to secure that a students’ union operates in fair and democratic manner and is accountable for its finances. This includes seeing that the following happens:

(a) The union has a written constitution that is subject to the approval of the governing body and review by that body at intervals of no more than five years. The date when your constitution was last reviewed usually appears on the front cover, letting you know when it’s due to be reviewed. The constitution should also outline the process that should be used to amend it; this usually involves approval by the sovereign body of the union.

(b) A student has the right not to be a member of the union or represented by it – a student who opts out in this way should not be unfairly disadvantaged in the provision of services or otherwise. Constitutions should detail an opt out clause within their appendices and code of practice. NUS recommends a procedure where any student wishing to opt out should indicate this within six weeks of the start of their course in writing to the Clerk of the Corporation. There should be a procedure for opted out students to join the union, but this should not take place within 20 college days of nominations opening for elections.

(c) The holders of major union offices are elected by secret ballot and that such elections are fairly and properly conducted. Most constitutions will have a separate schedule detailing the procedures for holding an election, including when they should be held and how long each stage should last.

(d) No one holds paid elected office or ‘sabbatical’ office for more than two years; Where sabbatical officers are being paid, your constitution should contain a clause saying that this is the case.

(e) The financial affairs of the union are properly conducted and there are appropriate arrangements for the approval of the union’s budget and the monitoring of expenditure, by the governing body. The constitution may have provision for an annual budget and audited accounts approved by the sovereign body of the union before being submitted to the board of governors for approval.

(f) A financial report of the union is published at least every year and made available to the governing body and to all students – the report should include details of donations to external organisations;

(g) The procedure for allocating resources to groups or clubs is fair and available in writing to all students; this will normally be included in a separate schedule relating to clubs and societies.

(h) Notice is published to all students of any decision to affiliate to an external organisation and information is available as to the current list of organisations to which the union is affiliated, and of any subscription or donation paid. Affiliation to an external organisation will usually be by referendum or by the sovereign body of the union. A referendum on a single issue cannot be held twice during the same year.

(i) A complaints procedure is available to students where they are dissatisfied in their dealings with the union. This will appear in the students’ union code of practice, which is often an appendix to the constitution. It should allow for an independent person, appointed by the board of governors to investigate and report on complaints. The complaints procedure should be open to those students who feel disadvantaged by opting out of membership.

The Basic Framework of a Constitution

The constitution is not meant to be a complicated and secret document jealously guarded by the Executive. It is an active document that your members use to raise the issues that concern them, or that you use to seek their views on certain issues. Either way the constitution should be as easy to understand as possible. The way you set it out is therefore very important. There are two sections:

1. The Articles or main body, (the rules) which set out what people can or cannot do and define the aims and objects of the union.

2. The Schedules (the tools) which consist of some sections that require more detail. They cover particular areas of the constitution and are usually operational in nature, e.g. how to organise an election, how to set up clubs and societies.

For example: within the main body the membership need only know that elections will take place at a certain time for certain posts. The specific rules and regulations that deal with elections are placed in a schedule so as not to fill the main body with unnecessary detail.

3. Appendices – these cover regulations that the membership cannot directly change. These can include the Code of Practice, and the union disciplinary procedure, for example.

Process for Reviewing Democratic Structures

We can normally split discussions about democratic structures and constitutions into two main areas.

Firstly there are issues that are specific to the constitution as a document; examples of these are the layout and the language. Many of these issues will be related to the style of the document. The most appropriate way to deal with this would be to sit with the document and pick out which bits should be changed.

The second and often more time consuming area will be the decision-making structures. These tend to be functional and political issues that cannot be solved by simply sitting down with the document and pen. Examples of these could be the committee structures or elected positions, which may be considered not to work, or the circumstances of the union may have changed.

Reviewing the constitution at this level often requires more thought and regularly going back to the drawing board.

There is a two-stage process for this. Firstly, look at the big picture:

• Look at structures and bodies, systems and decision-making processes
• How do/don’t they work?
• What makes them effective or ineffective?
• What needs to change?

Once you have determined which structures and bodies you want, consider how the document should be amended. It is better to be sent back to the drawing board at the initial stages when you are developing the rationale rather than after you have written up the final document. Additionally this approach also enables you to involve students who might not necessarily be aware of the union’s governing document, but do have an awareness of what bodies and structures there are in place.

When going through the changes you wish to make, make sure you discuss them thoroughly and as widely as possible.

You should:

• Allow lots of time for the review process to take place.
• Look at some of the difficulties and problems your union faces.
• Identify shortcomings of your current constitution and what your aspirations are for a new structure.
• Decide whether or not a constitutional change would solve the problem – or whether it is a functional/political problem.
• Advertise any proposals you may make and involve your membership in the discussion.

Preparing your constitution

The purpose of this section is to aid union activists who wish to either:

Write a constitution from scratch

Rewrite certain sections of one that already exists

Click here to access or print the NUS/AoC Model Constitution.

This is a PDF document, so your computer will need free-to-use Acrobat software to view it. The link opens in a new window.