The Education Act 1994 requires that, every five years, there is a review of the SU’s governing documents (its Articles of Association and bye-laws). Following that review, the trustee board is proposing a revised draft of the Articles of Association. The draft is based on NUS Charity’s 2025 model articles for charitable companies.
Overwhelmingly the intention has been to make the Articles more flexible, plain English and easy to interpret and understand. We would note that:
- The draft seeks to separate out formal company law business (which is less flexible and less frequently relevant) from democratic / Student Voice concepts (which are essential for the formation of policy and the election of sabbatical officers).
- The draft also makes the Student Voice mechanisms more flexible, to reflect recent developments in our democratic structures and to allow for further development as technology and means of democratic engagement continue to evolve.
- In the previous Articles, students who do casual work for the Union (for example behind the Bar of the Luna Lounge or as one of our Faculty reps) were unable to stand to be Student Trustees. We think that this is unfair and have addressed it in this draft, subject to the requirements of charity law.
- The list of “powers” that the Union can undertake to further its educational purposes has been modernised and simplified.
- There are amendments to the process for appointing and removing trustees, which retain the ability for Students to appoint the sabbatical officers (and to remove them or the Student Trustees by vote of no confidence).
- The provisions clarify the current confusing situation with the Chair of meetings (which is that a Sabbatical Officer is chosen to be Chair of Trustees but that there is a separate External Trustee “Convenor” who chairs trustee meetings). Under the new provisions, an External Trustee is appointed as Chair, and President of the Union automatically becomes the Deputy Chair.
| Read the Draft
We are required as part of this process to open a 14-day consultation period with our student members (starting today and ending 14th November), if you have any feedback on this draft please follow this link to provide it.
Feedback - Click here
Following the close of this consultation period all feedback will be provided to our legal advisors and discussions will be had on as to whether it can be included or not.
A draft is then submitted to the University Board of Governors for approval, before being brought to our student members for final approval at our Annual General Meeting (AGM).