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► President's Blog
Hello! I'm Tom and I'm the Student Union President and until I took a year out to do this I was a 3rd year History student. The whole point behind this blog is to get a measure of accountability in your elected representatives. When it's finished this blog will have dates and times of meetings I'm attending as well as a run down of what I've been up to during the week. Below are then some more detailed thoughts of mine about some major issues affecting students. As with everything, please don't hesitate to come and talk to me about any of these issues. You can email me on susa-president@stir.ac.uk Right, I'm giving up on vlogging for the minute, my little head can't get round the techno bit in the time I have so I'm back to text I'm afraid. I'm also trying to get a section in Brig, to be more open, however that's up to the editor and currently he doesn't think it's appropraite right now. So I'll keep pushing for one but for the minute this will have to do.
End of Year Report This is my end of year report. It’s impossible to really sum up a years work in a few short pages but hopefully this will give you a good indication of the work I’ve done, the success and failures I’ve had and how, hopefully, I’ve improved students’ lives. The role of the President is a funny one, so while below I’ve listed my work under my specific responsibilities I have also been involved in the entertainments side and the welfare side as and when needed by Mark or Catherine. I’ve divided my work into four areas; campaigning and lobbying, work with the University, work internally in SUSA and work externally with NUS and government. I’ve also said when in the year the work was done and if it’s completed. Enjoy. Campaigns and Lobbying Student Support: All Year, Ongoing Shape It Survey of Students: February, Completed University Accommodation Rents: February – March, Completed 24 Hour Library Project: All year, Completed Local Income Tax: June – September, Completed Under-21 off-sales purchase: July – November, Completed Tenancy Deposit Scheme: June – August, April, Ongoing Carnage: October, Ongoing In the Red: November, Ongoing Reclaim the Night: December, Ongoing The University I sit on a number of University Committees representing student views, the deal with everything from the operation of the library to the future strategy for learning and teaching. They are all year round and from as often as every month, to 3 or 4 times a year. Learning and Teaching Quality Enhancement Strategy: Meets 4 times University Court: Meets 5 Times Academic Council: Meets 4 Times Principal Appointment Committee: Meets 3 Times Academic Portfolio Review Group: Meets Monthly Induction Working Group: Meets over summer monthly, then 2 times Library Board: Meets Monthly Library Programme Board; Meets Monthly Committee Structure Review Committee: Meets Monthly Carbon Management Programme: Meets Monthly Student Experience Committee: Meets 4 Times Quality Enhancement Committee: Meets 4 Times SUSA Finances: June – September, Completed Consultants: June – October, Completed General Managers: October – February, Completed Strategic Planning: February – Next Year, Ongoing Governance: All year, Ongoing Highlands and Islands: All year, Ongoing Council: All year, Completed Exec: All year, Completed Finance: All year, Completed Sports Union: January Onwards Club Meetings Freshers Week & Refreshers Week MSPs: Year Round Fairer Funding Debates: November, December NUS Conferences: November, January, April Scottish Council: November Scottish Conference: March Student Leader Round Table: August NUS Awards: April Scottish Funding Council: October Student Loans Company: November Brussels: December Exec Training: July Active Political Leadership: August Pres Residential: December The Gathering: August
Shape It>> Student Survey As, hopefully you are aware, there is a lot of change happening behind the scenes which the survey will inform. we're also holding workshops with club presidents to get a more detailed insight into what SUSA needs to do to help clubs run. An online version of the survey results can be found here!
Tenancy Deposit Under 21 Drinking 
At the start of the year the Scottish Government announced there would be an extra £30million going towards student support. The consultation for that came out over Christmas and we’re in the process of submitting our response to the consultation. It will reject the government proposals of changing a few loans into grants and propose that the maximum amount of support, currently only £4500 is increased to nearer £7000, the national poverty line. We have Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem support and we sent a letter to the Education Secretary condemning their lack of understanding about student issues and failure to fulfil their manifesto pledge to completely scrap student debt. It received a lot of media coverage and we’ll find out how we do in a few days.
One of the biggest criticisms of SUSA over the past few years is that we’re not doing what students want. So we commissioned a survey to be created asking all students what they thought of SUSA, how they’d improve it and what they think we should be doing. The survey was a great success, with 753 students completing it, over double the amount needed to be statistically significant. The results have given us a great insight into what students think of SUSA and we will use them in the near future to set our direction for the coming years.
A freeze on rents of Uni accommodation was a risky manifesto promise as we’d be battling massive increases in staff costs and energy prices. The argument was based on the premise that the rents were reflective of the quality of Uni accommodation and any rise would not be justifiable. While rents across other Universities’ accommodation was going up between 6-10% Stirling’s have either not gone up at all (a real term cut once inflation is taking into account), gone up 2%-3% (at or just less than inflation so a freeze in cost). Only one block went up higher than inflation at 5%, this was due to a refurbishment and change to en-suite bedrooms.
The opening time of the library is one of the biggest gripes which students have. There was a new Library Director appointed mid year who was far more open to the idea of extended hours than the previous one. There was an agreement to have a pilot project with extended opening hours during the final exam. There were 2 options open from 9am most days until 2am or 24 hours. We successfully argued for the 24 hour option as this would mean we could truly assess when students needed the library open and could adjust the final service to cater to that need.
The SNP Government tried to scrap the council tax, which students are exempt from paying, to a local income tax, which students would not be exempt from paying. I wrote and submitted a response to the government consultation along with NUS, businesses, opposition parties and other Student’s Associations. The Scottish Government caved under pressure and have scrapped the plans.
The Scottish government, along with some other measures to tackle Scotland’s alcohol problem, proposed that only those over the age of 21 could but alcohol from shops. SUSA was part of CARDAS (Coalition against Raising the Drinking Age in Scotland) and with opposition parties and NUS the proposals were voted down in the Scottish Parliament. We attended a protest, before the vote and submitted a response to the consultation.
This has been a national push to secure an independent body to look after and adjudicate tenants deposits. The SNP government continued to stall until a survey was released on housing in Scotland. That came out in April and there is a renewed effort to create this.
An organisation called Carnage held a night in Stirling. It promoted excessive binge drinking and the sexual exploitation of women. There was quite a lot of media coverage about student’s opposition to the Carnage nights. I started quite a successful facebook group, got national radio coverage and submitted policy to the National Union of Students. I had a meeting with out local MSP and MP about the issue and Labour officially denounced nights such as Carnage in parliament.
This was part of a national campaign to highlight the levels of student debt as part of NUS UKs report to the UK Government entitled Broke and Broken. Dozens of students were involved, showing that levels of student debt can reach as high as £56,000 upon graduation. This was combined with our response to the Broke and Broken funding report which led to a policy being taken to NUS’ Annual Conference. This policy set up NUS’ position on the Government’s upcoming Higher Education funding review.
Reclaim the Night was a protest march campaigning for an end to violence against women. The procession began by Stirling Castle and proceeded through Stirling to the City Chamber in Viewforth. Hundreds of people attended from across the city.
This group was set up to define what the University’s Strategy for improving learning and teaching would be over the next 5 years. We were involved from the start and a number of students have been involved and had input. The strategy is currently in the final stages of being drafted but looks really good. Final copies will be available later this year.
This is the governing body of the University. My role on this is to ensure that the overall strategies will not negatively affect students. It approves the library budget, scrutinises the finances of the Uni and agrees the Strategic Plan.
This sets the academic strategy for the University. Sets the overall academic strategy and approves the opening and closure of new departments. As with University Court my role is to ensure that the academic strategy of the University is in the best interests of students.
Our Current Principal, Christine Hallett is retiring next year. As President I sit on the committee which appoints a new one. We’re only in the preliminary stages and we won’t decide until next academic year.
This group was set up to look at the range of degrees and module combinations which Stirling has. Its aim is to streamline what we do by discovering which programmes are bringing students to the University and which aren’t. It does mean that a few degree combinations will close down, but only those which attract less than 5 students over 5 years.
This looks at how students are inducted into University life. It co-ordinates all the departments and basically ensures that left hand knows what the right hand is doing for Freshers’ Week, this year a much greater emphasis was put on online materials and the information desk in the atrium and seemed to work better than in previous years.
This group deals with the overall Library strategy, from fundraising to the total costs of the refurbishment. The details are devolved to the Programme Board which I was nominated to sit on.
This group deals with how the new library and the interim library will work. We’re responsible for ensuring there’s adequate study and computer spaces and that the books which are in the interim collection are the ones which students will need.
Probably my favourite committee title ever! This group is set up to review how the many, many committees of the University interact and what their function is. It’s fascinating and should hopefully mean that students are better represented and decisions are made more effectively.
The University has pledged to reduce its carbon emissions. This is where the idea for an Inter-hall Energy Competition was first raised which lead to a reduction in energy in all the halls by up to 17% in one year. I have also done work around ensuring that SUSA’s power use is lowered.
This deals with the experience of students, from welfare provision to student funding. It’s where we took the report on the Highland Campus.
This committee deals with the detail of learning and teaching and approving new modules.
I’ve mentioned this enough over the last year so I’m not going to go into great detail. So I short when we took office on 1st June we had dire finances, almost no reserves and little sign of things getting better. I spent the early part of the summer negotiating some extra financial assistance on top of the £313,500 they give us every year. We managed to negotiate; a £200,000 debt right off saving us tens of thousands in interest every year, and extra £76,400 for SUSA and an increase of £45,000 for this coming years block grant.
In conjunction with receiving the extra University funding we managed to get the University to pay for two external consultants to come in. The first was looking at our management structures, the second our financial set up. Needless to say both were in a mess and spelt out some very urgent, very clear changes which needed to be made. We are currently in the process of implementing their recommendations.
We’ve had three this year. Our long serving GM Gordon Thompson resigned to spend more time with his family and to change career paths in October. This left us with no senior staff member. I began a process for recruiting a new one, writing the job description, advertising and interviewing. After a month or so of having no GM, we decided that we needed somebody as an interim until the new one was appointed. We got Graham Boyack, former GM or Edinburgh Students’ Association to fill in. After a round of interviews and many applications for the position we hired Audrey Burns. She started in late February. I’d like to thank both Graham and Audrey for what they’ve done this year. SUSA would have folded a while ago without them, but is now looking rather healthy.
The lack of any vision for SUSA was mentioned in both the external reports. The majority of the work to get a completed plan for the future will be done this summer but we are well on the way, with a strong mission and vision statement being drafted. The results of the Shape It survey have informed this greatly. It will ultimately go to Senate in October for students to vote on.
This again was highlighted in the reports. In short our structures are in as much as a mess as everything else was. The process for changing our constitution is rather complicated so will need wait until October until any changes can be made. What has been done this year is establish a number of legal and professional opinions about what needs changed, clarified and amended.
There is more than 1 campus which Stirling has. There are hundreds of students in our campus in Inverness and 119 in Stornoway. We have increased the levels of representation at Inverness and have submitted a detailed report of the problems they face to the Student Experience Committee. Many of these issues are being addressed. We have visited Stornoway twice and will set up video-conferencing links in the future to maintain regular contact with students there.
Oman: April, Ongoing
Stirling has an Affiliate College in Oman, I recently visited, the first time somebody from SUSA has been to there. I have made strong links with students and staff there and all going to plan will receive some Omani students to Stirling next year. My visit was quite brief and I hope to attend for a more extended trip at the end of next year.
This is supposed to meet 2 or 3 times a semester, which it has, but is one area I haven’t been as pleased with as others. It is very difficult, with the infrequency and composition of the Council to engage the members. So we have struggled to have enough attending for the Council to be considered viable a lot of the time. However, those Councils which did meet seemed productive. Its purpose is one of the prime areas of focus for the review of how we operate.
The Executive Committee is supposed to meet weekly, which it did for the first semester. However, from a committee of 8 in June we dropped to effectively just 5 after a pregnancy, dropping out of uni and family sickness. This has made meetings much less effective as the reports are done to people who carried out the work. It again, will receive a lot of attention in next years governance review.
This meets monthly and is one of the more effective SUSA committees. While it has it problems and sluggishness it is where the majority of business goes to. There is a lot of confusion in between the remits of this and the executive committee.
I’ve done quite a bit of work with Greg around Sports Union funding in the years to come, attending meetings with him, the University and the Sports Department. I’m currently looking in next years budget to find extra funds for the SU on top of the £20,000 I promised in my manifesto. I’ve also had weekly work with clubs who, for whatever reason, need assistance with their club.
As part of the Shape It survey I met with club presidents to discuss any issues they had and how they think they could be resolved. From this meeting a few minor issues were raised and solved and more serious ones were confirmed and we’re currently looking at ways of ensuring that doesn’t happen next year.
These take an insane amount of planning, I spend much of the actual week doing welcome and intro talks to students. The event I was most pleased with was the debate on higher education attended by the Education Spokespeople of the 4 main parties.
NUS & National Issues
I have met with our 6 MSPs on a number of occasions throughout the year discussing student support, the local income tax, the under-21 drinking proposals, carnage and the tenancy deposit scheme
The 3 debates, of which I was able to attend 2, were held by NUS to establish how the £30million extra for student funding should be spent. A number of students attended one in Edinburgh and I was the speaker at one in Aberdeen.
There have been 3 conferences this year. 2 in Wolverhampton debating the merits of a change in the way NUS UK works and structures itself. Then in April there was the Annual Conference, 3 days long, in Blackpool. We discussed, student funding, alcohol, the European Elections and elected the new NUS officers.
This is held in November, Stirling bought a number of motions, on the minimum income for students, the local income tax and Carnage. All of which passed. I was also elected to the NUS Scotland Scottish Executive Committee.
This is held in March, over 2 days. Strictly speaking I was there on behalf of NUS Scotland, not SUSA. The 5 delegates from SUSA who were present debated student funding, NUS Scotland Governance and the £30million extra funding.
This was held by Claire Baker, Labours’ Higher Education Spokesperson in August. It was attended by almost all Presidents in Scotland and we discussed all issues facing students in Scotland. It was the beginning of the discussions we had around what would become our proposal for the £30million extra funding for student support.
For the first time SUSA has been nominated for an NUS award in participation. It was as a result of the Shape It survey and the turnout in the elections, as well as the change in culture which has begun in SUSA. I haven’t heard if we’ve been short-listed yet, but if we are you’ll know about it!
Every few years the SFC comes to Stirling for a strategic dialogue session. They wanted about 8 students to talk frankly about Stirling. I organised a cross-section of students and we spoke to SFC reps for an hour on what we thought the strengths and weaknesses of Stirling University were.
This meeting was held in Belfast and was attended by 6 reps from across the UK. The idea is to give feedback to the SLC on issues students are facing accessing the funds available. I did not feel the meeting was structured properly and along with another rep from Birmingham have successfully secured NUS representation and a far more accurate cross section of the country.
NUS Scotland secured funding to take a few Presidents to Brussels to visit the EU Commission, European Parliament, European and French National Student Unions and meet a few of our MEPs. The trip was an eye-opener and showed how NUS and SUSA should lobby MEPs on a far more regular basis as the influence they have over the agenda in the UK is far greater than I had imagined.
The Executive Committee go on a 2 day training event every year. The purpose of this is to set the agenda for the year ahead and form a bond between the committee. It was very successful and the committee was stronger as a result, unfortunately all those who attended have no, for one reason or another resigned…
This is the premier training event held by NUS over the summer. It has two main functions, networking with over Presidents from across the UK, an underrated exercise and learning about very complex issues facing students. The one thing which has stayed with me more than any other is the imbalance and injustice within our Higher Education system. For example did you know there is a correlation between the ownership of dishwashers and the readership of the Telegraph and attendance at University… crazy! On a more serious note though, it shows the shocking inequality of funding within the HE sector.
This was a small gathering over 2 days in December of Scottish Presidents. It was not only another chance to network and see what other Unions are doing but also gave me a change to realise that while each and every Students Union think they’re unique the challenges which face us are similar.
This is a small training event which we all attended this summer. It covered everything from Carbon emissions and how to tackle them to the inequality in education.
Northern Services/NUSSL: June, April
2 years ago SUSA changed drinks supplier, from NUSSL (UK wide) to Northern Services (about 6 Unions from Scotland and Northern Ireland). My first day in June was spent at a Northern Services AGM but for the first time in years we attended the NUSSL AGM as well. I was one of two, a few years ago to vote against the change from NUSSL to Northern Services as it would cost us more, give us less support and provide us with fewer services, such as the Sound Impact awards. While we still buy our stock for the bars from Northern Services we re-joined NUSSL as well this year as the AGM I attended in April confirmed to me that NUSSL will not only give a better option for students behind the bar but far greater support for SUSA in it’s commercial services.
Thanks to the 753 of you who filled out the survey. It's the first time that SUSA has actually asked opinions of students! The results came in last week and highlights of them are displayed in the Robbins to see. However, the survery wasn't an end in itself, the next steps are the creation of a strategic plan setting the direction for SUSA over the next 3 years. The winners of the cash prizes have been announced and all the winners were VERY happy to win £500 and £250.
Future of SUSA
One of the reasons that I ran for President was because I realised that if the Union was going to become more successful in the years ahead it needed a strategy to achieve its aims - and more importantly, know what its aims are.
The nature of who students are and what student life is like is changing. One of my duties (I say duties like it's a chore...) is to attend social events put on by the University. This year the big push is celebrating the 40th Anniversary and in I've attended a number of drinks receptions and dinners with hundreds of Alumni. Why I'm mentioning this is that when I told them what student life is like now many of them were shocked - they were used to sitting around drinking and most importantly, not working part time to cover there costs as the Government gave them more than enough to live on and not visiting home until the end of the year.
As you'll know this is only echoed in student life today where having a part time job is almost compulsory unless you're prepared to live on next to nothing and rack up huge debts. Also many students either regularly visit home or stay at home and commute to University.
Essentially what I'm saying is that the demographic of students is changing - although nobody is sure exactly what has changed or exactly where it's going the evidence that a change is happening is everywhere; the University take in more International Students than ever before, there are more mature students, more students choose to live at home to avoid debts, more students have jobs in term time, less students are drinking (although the ones that do drink more), Students' choice in courses is changing with a focus on vocational degrees. The list goes on.
The nature of what SUSA has been doing (and Student Unions nationally for that matter) has also been changing in the last few years. Certainly in Stirling we've gone from being an outsider pressure group to an insider one, with at least one sabbatical sitting on all the relevant committees in the University where their voice is actually listened to and valued. There has also been a move away from students using Union run bars and clubs to either drinking in town, their flat, or not at all. The model for a student union in the 1990's was one that ran bars which subsidized its clubs and socs, sports clubs, welfare services etc etc. Now with almost all student bars losing money rather than making it the model of what a student union does has to change.
And that's where a strategic plan for SUSA comes in. Student Unions all over the country are either in the process of planning their futures or have already done so; even the National Union of Students has undergone a planning process and is in the process of reforming its governance, which I'll talk about in another blog.
Essentially, this process will be very long and may not even be finished when I leave office next June but when it's over SUSA will no where it wants to be and most importantly how it's going to get there. We'll be able to examine what it is we do well, and what it is don't do so well. It'll give the Association direction and purpose but it's a joint effort and will involve as many people as possible from everyone who works here to students like yourself and you'll see a lot of us this year talking directly about this issue - your input is essential!
I've been an elected officer in SUSA for over 3 years and I don't think there's a better time to evaluate what it is we're doing than now. For the thousands of students that live in privately rented accommodation the issue of what happens to the deposits put down at the start of the lease is always a tense one. I've certainly lived in 2 different flats of campus, 1 of which withheld an unfair portion of the deposit for 'cleaning' when the flat was near spotless anyway and if it hasn't happened to you Id put money on you knowing someone that has. The National Union of Students (Scotland) held a survey last year called 'Brick by Brick' which showed how over 1in3 students have experienced deposits being unfairly withheld or delayed. This isn't even a very controversial idea - such schemes exist in England, Ireland, Germany, France, Belgium, Canada, New Zealand - you get the idea...
Part of my manifesto was ensuring that rent deposits are not unfairly withheld and on the 18th of June I traveled through to the Scottish Parliament to attend a debate on the merits of introducing a mandatory tenancy deposit scheme to Scotland. If this was introduced it would mean that your landlord wouldn't hold the deposit a central agency would and when your lease was over it would then be repaid to you - unless the landlord has a legitimate claim. The debate was introduced by Claire Baker (Lab) - who is one of our list MSPs. The liberal democrats were in favour of an introduction but the SNP were not. A full transcript of the debate can be found here
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-08/sor0618-02.htm#Col9913
In the end the Scottish Government made no promises to introduce such a scheme, which was very frustrating as it means the campaign to get our rent deposits secured is going to be a lot harder - but not impossible.
I have written to all our MSP's, 9 in total, about why we think this is such an important issue but for this to work there needs to be a national push which will begin in the Autumn with the aim of putting significant pressure on Scottish Government back benchers and opposition parties so that the need for a deposit scheme is pushed up the agenda. This will need your involvement as we'll be holding rallies, nationally and locally on this issue. We'll also need to hear your experience of landlords as anecdotal evidence isn't sufficient.
If we win this it'll help significantly reduce the financial stress put on students.
Tenants Rights
It won’t come as much of a surprise, but students often live in rather sub standard accommodation. It’s very rare to find a flat which is of good condition, with good facilities, gets fixed promptly when it breaks AND is reasonably priced.
In an attempt to tackle this problem there are a number of measures that are being looked at by the Scottish Parliament, including the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, which there is in another section of this Bog.
In an attempt to tackle the poor levels of accommodation I took what I called a Tenants Bill of Rights. I list of what we believe should the minimum rights which all tenants should receive when renting accommodation. This was taken to Senate, which is SUSA’s AGM. It passed here but under our constitutional rules it has to be taken to referenda to become policy. This happened on the 11th of November and required 273 votes to pass. Which it did.
So what now? Well, I’m showing the Bill of Rights to Shelter and NUS to try and get them to sign up to it and increase the pressure we can place on our MSPs. I’ll leave it there for the moment but below is the Bill of Rights which passed.
- The landlord cannot deny or discriminate access or terms to a property based on gender, disability, sexual orientation, race, age, skin colour or religion.
- That an independent body evaluates and grades all landlords on their quality of accommodation and standard of care for their tenants and that grade is known when signing the lease.
- That on signin
g the lease a tenant will be given a written record of problems which may impede the quality of living and access to all documentation of the standard and condition of the property and that copies of such documentation will be available at request.
- That all deposits are held independently and are returned within the period of 14 days and are only withheld on the production of evidence by the landlord.
- That all accommodation must meet a minimum standard of requirements; there is adequate food storage, washing facilities, accessibility, and sufficient social areas to cope with the reasonable demand from tenants.
- That an independent emergency contact is allocated to every tenant which will be accessible 24 hours a day.
- That the tenant has the ultimate right to withhold rent should any serious breaches of above get incurred.
The argument put forward by CARDAS were that the Scottish Government weren’t using there current powers to restrict alcohol to under agers at the moment and that should be the focus of their proposals. They weren’t prosecuting retailers that sold to under 18s more regularly enough and they weren’t enforcing the production of ID cards at the point of sale. The argument also focused around the idea that raising the age would send out mixed signals about young people’s responsibilities as adults. If the proposals passed a young person could get married, fight in war, have a child and vote but at no point could walk into a shop and buy a bottle of wine.
The debate came to a head when the Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser put a bill to the Scottish Parliament saying the Parliament didn’t support this aspect of the proposal and should be dropped from the Government’s agenda. It was marked by a protest of students and the leaders of all 4 opposition parties in the morning, which students from Stirling attended. The debate itself was fascinating and can be read here… Needless to say the Scottish Parliament saw sense and passed the bill with a huge majority.
However, the fight isn’t over. The Scottish Government has not dropped the idea from their proposals and is adamant that they will go ahead, putting their entire alcohol agenda at risk. So I’ll update you all about what’s going to happen and how we ensure that these ludicrous proposals don’t become law.
University Funding of SUSA
For those who remember the elections back on March Cat, Mark and I ran on a ticket of saving the union. From our time on the finance committee before running we were acutely aware of how dire SUSA’s financial situation was. When we started in June we began talking to the University about how we could get back in the black. In the year before we took office SUSA’s commercial services lost over a hundred thousand pounds. Much of this was due to loan repayments which we gave the university every year, so our first aim was to get this loan written off. Another problem was emerging though, due to increasing staff and pension costs our General Fund (Sports Union, Clubs and socs etc) were projecting a 40K deficit.
3 weeks after the first meeting we returned with a document laying out our financial position, benchmarking ourselves against other Student Unions. We’d given the University this document 3 days before the meeting to give the University time to read it and prepare what they thought. We didn’t quite get exactly what we wanted, we had asked for the 200000 loan to be written off and for a block grant increase of 80000 each year. What we in fact got was the debt right off and a 45 increase for this years general fund deficit. However we also got 30K for the previous years debt, these were not year on year increases or any real terms increase as they just covered the deficit which we were projecting.
By no means has this turned around SUSAs financial fortunes and there is still an awful lot of work needs to be done to ensure there is a future for SUSA. For example of the 130000 deficit in the commercial services last year only 40000 of that was repayments so there’s still 90000 needing to be found to even produce a small surplus.
One of the outcomes of the true extent of SUSA’s financial situation being realized by the sabbs and the University was that they agreed to pay for 2 external reviews, which I won’t waffle on about now, but will dedicate another section of this too.
Local Income Tax
The Scottish Government is planning to replace the Council Tax with a Local Income Tax and is just coming to the end of a public consultation on it. This initiative could end up increasing the tax burden on working students.
Under the current system students in full time education are exempt from paying Council Tax; however, they will not be from the new proposals. The Scottish Government is proposing that every person is given a personal allowance of £6000 before being the Local Income Tax is applied. This means that if in the course of a year, working full time over summer or part time during term time you earn more than £6000 you will be taxed. What this means is that for every £5 you are taxed you'll have to work an extra hour just to earn the same as the previous year!
This is clearly unfair as it places further financial restrictions onto students - who already have a too many financial pressures to deal with. It also targets the most vulnerable students as those who need to earn over the £6000 personal allowance are likely to be from poorer backgrounds and as research by NUS has shown are twice as likely to drop out of university due to financial pressure.
I've just finished writing SUSA's response to the Government consultation which lays out the impact of the scheme. Which I've sent to the Scottish Government and our MSPs. In brief this is what it argues.
1) Students should be made exempt from paying a Local Income Tax.
2) Failing that the personal allowance should be raised to £7000 (the national
poverty line).
The response goes into a lot more detail about the specifics of the proposal and I'd be more than happy to email you a copy if you want one.
If the outcome of the consultation does not grant student exemption then we'll need to really put pressure on MSPs and the Scottish Government so that the financial pressures already put on students are not increased.This summer the Scottish Government released a consultation on their alcohol proposals. Part of those proposals was to raise the legal age at which you could purchase alcohol off-sales from 18 to 21.
SUSA, along with many other Student Associations and NUS Scotland responded to this consultation laying out our case for how these proposals stigmatized all people under 21 as criminals who should have restricted access to alcohol. The student movement rallied against these proposals under the banner of an organization called CARDAS (Coalition Against Raising the Drinking Age in Scotland). This campaign proved very successful, with hundreds of postcards being sent to MSPs denouncing the SNP’s proposals.
