Does anyone still care about Union Council?

The first Council meeting of the year took place last Tuesday and Nas Andriopoulos, Union President failed to present a written report, in violation of his constitutional obligations. Council is the representative voice of the student body and part of this includes holding the sabbatical officers to account. As such, Council requires they produce reports on what they’ve been up to.

After apologising and reassuring council of his commitment to prevent this from happening again in the future, he presented verbally. “It’s regrettable that I was unable to present a written report at the Council meeting this week,” he later told felix. “Rest assured this is a one-off occurrence and I will guarantee that a full written report will be presented at the next meeting in two weeks’ time.”

No one really cares what happens there. Just let the students be angry somewhere

The absence of a written report didn’t go unnoticed amongst the other members either, with one anonymous Council member saying “the whole concept of a council report is that you are elected as a student and throughout your time as an elected official you are accountable to them. Part of that is telling them what you’re doing. If you’re not writing a report you have closed all channels of communication and you might as well be a member of staff. That’s the whole point of having elected sabbatical officers. If you need to cut corners, that’s just not the one to cut”.

This hasn’t been the only hiccup Council faced so far, indeed Council has had a turbulent start. Many of the officers expected to produce a report (including yours truly) were unaware of their obligations, which included presenting a report of their progress, until Thursday last week. There were also complications with the room booking, and there was no confirmation of whether there’d be a Union staff member to take minutes until the very last minute.

In fact this is actually the second scheduled Council meeting of the year, but the first one to be realised, as an earlier meeting had to be cancelled due to lack of organisation (in particular issues with room booking). Council Chair, Abigail de Bruin, had wanted to start off the year by providing training for Council members and inherent within that was the assumption of having the Governance Manager’s support. But the Union role was made redundant earlier this July so Council members were only sent a powerpoint instead. “I didn’t think I had the authority to summon 16 people to listen to me talk, whereas if there is a staff member there’s an element of validation to it”, says de Bruin.

The removal of the role and the perceived failure to reallocate most of the duties that came with the position has made many students unhappy. The role of Governance Manager encompassed things such as organising minutes and agendas for all the major meetings in the Union, being the deputy returning officer for the Big Elections, as well as being an integral part of the Governance Committee, among other things.

This has led some to believe that the removal of the Governance Manager role is a symptom of a general disregard for democratic processes. As de Bruin explains, “There’s been a fundamental issue that I’ve definitely felt since I’ve started. Because attendance was repeatedly poor last year, Union Council, despite being our greatest democratic tool, has been really disregarded. It’s thought of as this thing like ‘It happens but noone really cares what happens there. Just let the students be angry somewhere.’”

She concludes, “It’s just the same issue we’ve faced in the Union for years: Communication with the membership.”