NTSU Officer Scrutiny Panel

Overview:

The current democratic structures of NTSU mean that officers aren’t held to account based on the promises they’ve made through their Manifesto and campaigns to be an Executive Officer. I am proposing that a new Officer Scrutiny Panel is introduced as a subcommittee of the current Student Council or as a replacement to the current Student Council, outlined in part 4 of the Democratic Procedures Document, which has been proven ineffective at both holding officers to account and ensuring the SUs networks are working as intended.

The main stipulation of this Big Idea is that it must be implemented into NTSUs Democratic Procedures Document during the review within the next 12 months making it a key democratic part of NTSU, the implementation of this panel should be reviewed after a following 12 months to analyse its effectiveness and amended as needed.
 

Background:

Currently NTSUs Executive Team are scrutinised through: Union Meetings (including AGM), Student Councils, and various Assemblies, currently Student Councils have little to no true scrutinising ability and instead tend to be just officers asking each over questions about elements of their role which could be done through Executive Committee instead. Officer scrutiny could be more effectively implemented through a more focused panel of students who are tasked with scrutinising the officer team on their work during the academic year.

Officer Scrutiny Panels are already a key part of many students’ unions, including UONSU, and work to ensure that officer teams are appropriately representing students within these unions. Most* of these unions post the reports from officers and the panels decisions publicly so students can review these at any point and gain an inside understanding of officer work and/or further scrutinise officers by proposing questions.

Student Panellists will be able to ask questions which cover anything within:

• The Officers Remit e.g. their role, activities, or response to issues.
• The Officers Manifesto/promises e.g. updates on specific manifesto points or campaign promises.
• Union Policy e.g. updates to existing policy or how the officer is acting out the unions values. 

Recommendation:

I am asking Student Council and/or Union Meeting to approve the addition of an Officer Scrutiny Panel to ensure officers are working for students as expected based on their manifesto, remit, and the current student academic climate.

Below are some options on how the panel could operate but this doesn’t need to be decided within this forum, these have been taken from current students’ unions/guilds who successfully operate an Officer Scrutiny Panel.

Possible Structure:

1. Officers submit a report to the panel who then reviews it and produces a list of questions. Once the panel has heard the answers, they will provide the officer a score from 0-4 dependant on how the officer answered each question, this score is then averaged and published to students. [Leicester Students’ Union]
2. Officers are asked to produce a report based on work done for the term, a panel then reviews this and indicates if the officer has made “sufficient progress” on manifesto points or not. [Derby Students’ Union]
3. A panel reads and reviews reports from officers compared to their manifesto/promises and asks questions to the officer. The scrutiny panel then produce a list of positive and constructive feedback for each officer to take away and work on. [Birmingham Guild of Students]
4. The panel produce a list of questions based on a report submitted by officers, these questions are anonymised and sent to each officer. During the panel the students review officer answers and produce further feedback for each exec officer. [Birmingham City Students’ Union]
5. Officers provide a short outline of work done and are then asked directed questions form panel members to understand the work that each officer has done. These questions are focused on manifesto points and the current climate for students in HE. [National Union of Students]

Possible Student Recruitment:

1. Student volunteers put themselves forward to be a part of the Officer Scrutiny Panel. [Birmingham Guild of Students]
2. Excising student leaders are appointed from E&D Networks, Society Committees, Sports Committees, and Academic Representatives. [Derby Students’ Union]
3. A group of students alongside two Sabbatical Officers appointed from other Students Unions’ come together to scrutinise officers. [Nottingham Students’ Union]
4. Like a jury a different group of students will be contacted before each Scrutiny Panel and invited to come scrutinise officers. [Liverpool Guild of Students]

Conclusion:

By implementing an Officer Scrutiny Panel, it will mean that our officer teams are truly accountable to students, this will mean officers will be pushed further to take opportunities which benefit the student body. It will also mean that officers cannot make false and unachievable promises to students, this will have a positive impact in making students truly engage with the student's union before running for an exec position, as otherwise they won't be informed enough about what they can and can’t achieve as an officer.

 

Thank you.