Understanding governance is the key to unlocking better student outcomes

In July, NUS ran its first ever Governance Symposium with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

It’s a good time to be talking about governance. Sabbatical officers have been trained in their new roles as trustees, and SUs will be holding the first board meetings of the new academic year.

Governance is everybody’s job. It might not be in their job title, but every students’ union staff member is impacted by the way their organisation makes decisions, who makes them and how they are signed off. If SU staff don’t know how these systems work, they can’t support members to engage effectively with these processes either.

This is especially true for sabbatical officers, who run for election because they have a close understanding of the issues which impact students, rather than knowledge about the governance systems which makes change happen. Most students don’t stand for these roles to be a trustee.

But educating people on governance is not boring when done right. It’s offering everyone involved the chance to be part of a system which makes students’ lives better and that’s a mission worth fighting for.

So how can education on governance be a tool for better outcomes for student members, staff and trustee boards?

It’s everyone’s responsibility

At Membership Services Conference in August, Sharanya Sivarajah and AyoOluwa (Lulu) Thomas from MDXSU delivered a session on how SUs’ failure to examine their own approaches to representation and diversity can lead to poorer outcomes for students.

Equity, diversity and inclusion in our unions is everyone’s responsibility and union staff play a large part in delivering against this. Insight into member needs, interests and concerns should always be a vital part of the governance process, along with overseeing risks, finances and organisational strategy. However, it’s trustees who should be asking the right questions and scrutinising the union’s strategic and operational work to ensure the union is delivering effective membership services.

When trustees focus on the wrong questions or evidence for these issues, unions lead themselves down paths which don’t serve members and take them further away from their vision, mission and purpose as charitable institutions.

At the extreme end of this situation, senior SU staff can find themselves fighting with boards about deeply existential issues, whilst students disengage with the union and ponder why their union never seems to represent anything they care about in a meaningful way. No-one wins in this scenario and outcomes suffer.

Unions are charities too

Trusteeships within the students’ union sector are very different from those in the charitable sector. SU boards see a significantly higher rate of turnover due to changing sabbatical officers and student trustees. External trustees often come into the sector due a personal connection with the students’ union and the institution, as well as to deploy their professional expertise.

Issues of legacy, strategy and organisational survival are harder to navigate in the complex and changeable landscape of the SU sector, particularly when trustees can be more significantly invested through their lived experienced than the average charity trustee. But SUs also have a much younger and more diverse trustee base than the wider charity sector, with plenty of chances to benchmark against peers.

But to get the best out of our trustee boards, we must support trustees to thrive within their roles and educate them about best practice like NUS’ and NCVO’s SU Governance Code. As Nick Smith recently argued, training and onboarding for SU trustees can be inconsistent, and that makes for weaker governors.

Annual general meetings (AGMs) were traditionally where unions talked about their charitable purposes and the work of the board. Many are now poorly attended, so little education is reaching the wider student population either. This prevents robust pipelines for feedback, scrutiny and accountability by the members which unions exist to serve.

Trusteeships and involvement in governance practices for students and officers is an exciting way to introduce students to fundamental skills and experiences which will shape their future careers. Students who understand the role of governance will be stronger advocates and leaders in future life. This is a brilliant educational tool, one which the sector rarely speaks about.

Getting it right

Recruiting the right board members and supporting them effectively is the starting point for ensuring that everyone can get the most out of the Union’s governance. Senior SU leaders should support boards to appropriately discharge their duties and board meetings should be challenging but productive spaces.

Middle managers in SUs need to be trained on the role of the union’s trustee board. This will improve the quality of the evidence they produce for the board and enable them to feed information to students and early career staff. It will also enhance the quality of their support for sabbatical officers: it makes little sense for sabbatical officers to be better trained in governance than the team who is there to support them.

Finally, students and early career staff need to understand their role in how governance works so they can make better use of the accountability systems at play. Whether this is attending an AGM, participating in student voice activities which will be escalated to board level, influencing policy, or being better advocates for how charities and SUs work, it all makes a difference.