Cherwell has obtained documents which outline the SU’s draft financial plans, expenditure, and income for the 2025-26 budgetary year, presented to the board in January 2025.
The SU projects an income of over £1 million, of which 68.1% is planned to go toward staff or administrative costs, including 52% in unelected staff burdened salaries, whilst the rest has been allocated toward development, legal fees, office equipment, and other administrative costs. Meanwhile, student projects are expected to receive 15.0%.
Separately, £59,054 was projected to be spent on “settlements” during the current budgetary year, according to a version of the 2024-25 budget updated in November 2024.
Of the anticipated 2025-26 income of over £1 million, a projected amount of £911,921 will come from the annual grant from Oxford University and its colleges, and the rest from Freshers Fair, partnerships, and other sources.
£560,560 is projected to go toward burdened salaries for unelected non-student staff, which includes CEOs, two ‘Advice Advisors’, and various full-time or part-time roles. The burdened salaries, alongside other staff and administrative costs, will take up 68.1% of the proposed budget. Meanwhile, the four elected student sabbatical officers will be paid £158,607 altogether.
15.0% of the proposed budget will go toward student projects. The majority will be allocated to the Freshers Fair which brings in a profit. 4.9% of the total budget will be allocated to the SU projects not aimed at making profit, including The Oxford Student newspaper that is expected to cost £23,575.
The proposed budget will allocate £500 to each of the ten SU Campaigns. Campaigns are one of the main ways the SU interacts with students and includes projects such as the Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality, Class Act, LGBTQ, and Suspended Students. A further £5,000 is projected to be spent on elections, the latest of which saw a turnout of 1471 voters out of 26,000 eligible students. Student meetings, which also witnessed low engagement recently, are projected to receive £3,400.
This comes after the SU recently discontinued campaigns in favour of individual ‘community officers’; as such, campaigns will “cease to exist as democratic structures” at the end of this term, according to a statement from the Disabilities Campaign (DisCam).
The campaign wrote: “You may have seen the SU’s all-student announcement confirming the Trustee Board decision to discontinue minoritised student representation via Campaigns at the end of Hilary, in favour of an individual ‘Community Officer’ structure. DisCam was not informed of this decision before it was sent to all students, nor were we consulted by SU in the decision-making process. The SU also had made the decision to prohibit Campaign committee officers from participating in University working groups, committees or liaising with University staff on behalf of the disabled student community during the Transformation period.”
The 2025-26 budget suggests that the SU is due to adopt a Co-CEO model with two full-time contracts with burdened salaries of £98,236 and £89,591 each. The role of CEO was previously held by one person with an unburdened salary range of £53,348-£61,818, according to job advertisements posted on LinkedIn for 2022-23, which did not factor in cost-of-living and other changes. (The burdened salary refers to the total cost to an organisation for hiring and maintaining an employee beyond their direct compensation in wages).
The fully burdened cost (including indirect costs) of the two Co-CEOs is projected to be £196,000, whereas in 2022-23, the Senior Leadership Team comprised three people with a fully burdened cost of £208,000.
In response, solicitors for the SU provided the following comment on their behalf: “The Oxford SU’s priority as a charity is to support all our students through our in-person and online services throughout the year. Our work includes primary purpose representation through student advocacy, supporting student-led campaigns, liaising with colleges to support student welfare and delivering independent student advice services. Our staff are focused on supporting student officers to deliver student representation, enhancing student projects and improving overall student life at our university. We rely on grants and income-generating activity to cover our overheads (including benchmarked salaries for staff across the education and charity sector) and our spending is audited each year within our publicly available accounts.”
See full details of the proposed 2025-26 budget in this table:
| Category | Amount | Subcategories | % Total |
| Unelected Non-student Staff Salaries | £560,560 | Advice & Student Representation Staff £284,695 + Communication & Operations Staff including OSSL £275,865 = £560,560 | (52%) |
| Staff Development & Reward | £22,770 | ||
| Legal & Professional Fees | £73,573 | ||
| Transformation | £10,000 | ||
| Misc. | £68,115 | Staff Output Communications £15,938 + Office Premises & Equipment & IT £24,031 + OSSL Admin £1,218 + NUS Associated Costs £26,928 | |
| Total for Non-elected Non-student Staff/Admin | £735,018 (68.1%) | ||
| Elected Student Sabbatical Officer Salaries | £158,607 | ||
| Student Officer Engagement & Development | £23,000 | Engagement £10,000 + Development £13,000 | |
| Total for Elected Students Officers | £181,607 (16.8%) | ||
| Campaigns | £5,750 | The SU runs ten campaigns: CRAE, International Students, It Happens Here, LGBTQ, Disabilities, Women’s, Class Act, Suspended Student, Refugee Rights, and Environmental Affairs, with £500 each, plus £750 in discretionary spending | |
| Elections | £5,000 | ||
| Student Meetings | £3,400 | ||
| Student Training | £1,000 | ||
| Student Advice Services | £8,897 | ||
| Welfare | £4,400 | ||
| Freshers Fair | £109,633 | *Freshers Fair is projected to make a net profit, with an income of £125,589 | |
| Student Output Communications (The Oxford Student Newspaper + Oxide Radio) | £24,297 | ||
| Total for Student Projects | £162,377(15.0%) [4.9% excluding Freshers’ Fair] | ||
| Total | £1,079,002 |
