‘Affiliation fees promote responsibility’
Ben Britton, MCR President, St Catherine’s
OUSU’s financial situation is perilous. Their reserves are totally wiped out by continuing financial incontinence, their projections are similarly unhealthy and unfortunately their attitude remains unhelpful. We are expecting a vast ‘strategic review’ of OUSU’s operations and how it can best serve its students.Yet before this review has even started consultations, a review which OUSU officers have stripped of any financial oversight, OUSU blunders ahead with a drastic modification to its funding model.
Included in these proposals is another change of premises. When the premises in Bonn Square were first lauded in 2002, it was hoped that they could solve many of the institutional failures of OUSU. Yet, 8 years later and OUSU clamours for ‘better suiting’ premises as the current ones are ‘unfit’. However, such projections are at best qualitative as estimates of rent or moving costs are missing, therefore we cannot properly juge the impact of a move.
The registration of the Student Union with the Charity Commission is a huge undertaking, and will see OUSU as a separate legal entity to the University under direct regulation of the Commission. OUSU should be able to stand on its own two feet, but at present, it is on the verge of bankruptcy. The OUSU Executive presents a case which highlights endemic funding failures, yet in the same breath is happily willing to increase its costs; such a schizophrenic attitude to finances shows a fundamental misunderstanding of their duties as trustees of our Student Union. One wonders why no member of the Executive has considered significant spending cuts, unpalatable as they may be, as OUSU must reign in their out of control spending to address their self-made financial crisis; spending is £20K for each of the six elected Sabbatical officers and a further £170K+ to oil their ineffective bureaucratic machine with other OUSU & OSSL staff.
While there are superficial benefits incurred by the removal of affiliation fees, we cannot rush into this without grasping what effects such a change will incur. OUSU will have to beg for around £1 million total funds for 10/11 which will have to come from our University fees, and there will no longer be any significant student voice in OUSU’s level of funding. Where will the control and input from the student population be drawn from if there is no longer a financial incentive for common rooms to insist their officers attend Council?
A review of funding and the operations of our student union are long overdue. OUSU must change to serve and represent students better within our complex institution, yet rashly proposing a massive funding increase in a similarly massive document with minimal consultation will drastically hurt the students of Oxford in the longer term.
‘Affiliation fees prevent financial stability’
Jason Keen, ex-JCR President, St John’s
Our students’ union is at a crossroads. Facing a funding crisis brought on by a funding model that is not fit for purpose, whilst at the same time preparing to register with the Charity Commission and approaching the end of the lease on our current premises. Never before has the question of what our student union should be, what it should do and how we should pay for it been of greater importance.
The timing could not be more critical: as the University prepares to absorb deep government funding cuts over the next few years, the type of education we all receive at Oxford is at stake. We need a strong students’ union to make sure our voices are heard.
To achieve this we need to move away from the current funding model that leaves our union crippled by debt and we must end the destructive culture that sees us trying to tear down OUSU rather than talking about the problems it was created to try and help solve.
We need to support the OUSU President’s proposal to abolish common room affiliation fees and campaign for the University to properly fund our students’ union.
Our student union was founded in recognition of the fact that students needed representation and support beyond college level, and that a body with the mandate to petition the University on behalf of all Oxford students was far more likely to be successful. That’s why OUSU still works for and provides services to all students today – regardless of whether you belong to an affiliated common room.
With that in mind, it fundamentally does not make sense for OUSU to be funded by contributions from JCRs and MCRs. It also creates a situation where some common rooms will disaffiliate, for financial rather than ideological reasons. Afterall, why pay for affiliation when students will receive representation, access and support regardless? Thus our student union is currently propped up on a funding model that not only doesn’t fit with the makeup of the organisation, but is also inherently unstable. Disaffiliation by a single common room reduces OUSU’s monetary resources, increases its deficit and hinders its ability to provide for you.
Some would argue that OUSU can cut its way out of trouble, but the maths just don’t add up: if OUSU stopped all campaigning, cut all publicity, abolished Oxford’s student radio station, cut its non-commercial publications and training for the Student Advice Service tomorrow, then it would save just £19,000 – less than a third of the deficit for this year. Thousands of pounds worth of savings have already been made this year, yet the organisation is still projected to make a substantial loss – as it has in eight of the last ten years. This is not a spending problem. It is a funding problem.
If we were funded as other student unions are – by University block grant – this would be solved. Russell Group student unions such as UCL and Warwick are given as much as £98 and £91 per student in funding by their institutions. OUSU receives just £11.53 per student. If we could convince the University to increase this to as little as £17.85, then we could set our student union on firm foundations, leaving it more able to cater to your needs and abolish affiliations fees.
