Scrutiny Committee
5 May 2015
Attending:
Hannah Sterritt (HS), Jake Smith (JS), Nadeem Pervaiz (NP), Olivier van den Bent-Kelly (OBK)
Claire Blakeway (CB)
NP: Could you please reflect back on how you think this year has gone?
CB: This year has gone very well with much improvement made to Heath Park. The Heath Hub is to commence in July and by September there will be more facilities for students. Other highlights include Heath RAG and Heath Varsity.
NP: And over the past few months?
CB:
1. There has been extra work done to prepare for the handover. There is due to be summer training and summer Union on tour.
2. A housing charter is being planned as a scheme between the Students’ Union and Citizens UK which is to outline the standards and qualities expected of student housing and then given to and agreed by landlords to ensure a consistent standard among properties.
3. The “Languages for All” program at the Heath has been improved by the greater scope of accessibility. Classes used to only be held until 7pm, but this caused problems for those whose classes finished at 5/6pm. Working with estates has meant that sessions can be run between 7 and 9pm.
4. Another time extension made has been to the IV lounge. Currently, it is open between the hours of 9am and 3pm, but plans have been agreed to extend the opening time to 9am to 5pm.
5. I have applied to run a session at the NUS national conference specifically for healthcare students because the NUS has typically neglected healthcare students.
6. Planning is in place for summer revision aid. For the first time, a petting zoo is due to be present at the Heath Park campus, albeit having to go through confirmation by the RSPCA and the university estates team.
7. Sitting on an off-scheme workgroup focussed on the clinical examinations which must be undertaken by Heath Park students – students feel that these assessments aren’t consistent. As a result, there is a steering group across the heath schools in place to deal with this.
8. Going to the main 4 London universities to learn from student groups as to how they engage with international students. Also going to Dundee as it has the 4th best students’ union in the UK in addition to it having the same characteristic of being situated within a devolved nation.
9. Every healthcare student in their placement year will be sent a pack from the Students’ Union as well as a leaflet detailing what they can do whilst on placement in order to improve the link with students on placement.
10. Sitting on an health-specific inter-professional education group, where physiotherapists, medics and medics learning modules together to encourage a teamwork dynamic which will be used in their future careers and to appreciate each other’s roles more.
11. Next year, it is planned that the sabbatical officers will go to different parts of the campus to speak to students. This would be really good for the officers to be more student-facing.
12. Research will be conducted with sixth form students to find out their perceptions of universities and students unions.
JS: You talked about 6th form outreach; isn’t the university best placed to look at this instead of the Students’ Union?
CB: The University does that already, but it should also be students’ union specific. It is believed that high school students either see a students’ union as a night club or activity centre.
OBK: Would letting agencies have to sign up to the housing charter?
CB: Yes
OBK: How are you going to do this?
CB: Citizens UK have already gathered interest, so the Students’ Union can use this model as an example and go out to the letting agents. Really this is under VP Welfare’s remit, but there is a crossing over for the New Year.
HS: Have you achieved everything you wanted?
CB: The healthcare games didn’t happen, so timing for this has to be better organised next year.
NP: What have been your three main highlights?
1. Medics varsity
2. Renovation project at the heath with a £50,000 investment
3. Education elements, e.g. off-scheme group and representing views of heath students.
NP: What have been your three aspects to change / you wish you knew / you wish you’d done?
1. Heath Park games
2. Wish knew how difficult the job was going to be – it is more of a lifestyle in some respects.
3. Wish knew more about the role since September.
NP: Thank you for your work this year.
Faraz Alauddin (FA)
NP: Could you please reflect back on how you think this year has gone.
FA: It has been positive, and a lot of what was set out in the manifesto has been achieved. The implementation of Time for Change hasn’t had a huge tangible effect, but other plans such as the early release of timetables have been achieves.
JS: The GP Clinic has been pushed back for opening. Why?
FA: The University Estates team are very slow. It will hopefully be fully operating within a few weeks.
NP What were the highlights of this year?
FA: Work in residence associations has been a particular highlight, this operation has been smooth (including the acquisition of funding). This is ultimately to help out the students who reside in student accommodation, which is a considerable number.
NP: What were the failures of this year?
FA: Trying to get more out of hours support for students, i.e. external professional counsellors, has been near impossible as such staff have not been available throughout the year.
OBK: Regarding the wellbeing team, did you have support for this?
FA: This had gone really well. The number of referrals from the student support team has doubled in 2014/15 compared to 2013/14.
OBK: Will it be continued?
FA: There is no reason why the team cannot be at next year’s Freshers’ Fayre. The team received good promotion during the first term of this academic year and can potentially be a useful tool during revision week.
JS: How is the substance awareness policy?
FA: The policy hasn’t quite come to fruition, but it is hoped to be picked up. There has been some success in this policy area, for example changing the event name “Drink the Bar Dry” to “DTBD”.
HS: Will you have completed everything you wanted to do by the end of the year?
FA: Anything not done can be continued next year.
JS: In your report, you talk about a paper about a bursary for asylum seekers in progress. How is it going?
FA: This is currently in discussion. The university has essentially said that bursaries can be made for tuition fees, but living costs must be funded from a different source.
OBK: Will the Students’ Union be able to raise this as charity?
FA: It would have to be substantial amount raised because after three years of running such a bursary scheme, if two students are awarded a bursary annually, the Students’ Union would have to pay six sets of living costs.
HS: It is understood that a credit union is currently in its early stages. How will this work by the end of this term?
FA: The Catholic chaplain has been heading this, collaborating with the finance department, with the aims of starting this up by the start of the next academic year. A credit union would be of particular help to international students who cannot receive credit from UK banks for a substantial matter of time.
Elliot Howells (EH)
NP: Could you please reflect back on how you think this year has gone.
EH: This has been one of the most amazing years of my life – on a personal level, the past year has brought both professional development and challenges to help me learn about myself. Because of having a really fantastic team, the Students’ Union have put into place successes to pass onto the next sabbatical team both in Cardiff and nationally.
NP: What have been your three main highlights?
1. The General Election stuff.
The Students’ Union had organised one of the biggest General Election campaigns across the UK, which could attribute to the increase in voter registration to 19,500 within Cardiff. I take pride in the fact that student views were held at the heart of media coverage in Wales.
2. Winning officer team of the year.
This was down to a committed team who have been a pleasure to lead.
3. Securing £2,500,000 to renovate the ground floor of the Students’ Union building.
NP: What could have been improved this year?
EH: Due to issues with the university, some projects take longer to put into place. However thanks must be extended to the senior management team. Projects such as the cash-card scheme are progressing, but this scheme in particular is to be initiated after September due to its’ sheer size.
JS: In your election manifesto, there was stipulation to improvements as to transport between campuses. How is this going?
EH: There is a grand plan in place regarding the Students’ Union’s estates, transport being linked to this.
HS: Are there any thing that you haven’t been able to get done?
EH: The plans for transport, for example, as things taking so long. Also, it has been difficult to strike a work-life balance, as work runs for 60-70 hours a week and problems are taken back home.
OBK: After the recent referendum for a Welsh language full time officer, there has been a backlash by a number of Welsh students.
EH: There is a meeting to take place on Thursday in order to look at the next steps – there has already been a target to improve the Welsh language and culture. There is now a significant job to rebuild bridges and regain the trust of a number of disenfranchised students, though this has been agreed among sabbatical officers that the referendum has produced the correct result.
HS: Will there be welsh language provisions in Thursday’s meeting?
EH: Yes.
OBK: Is there soon to be more Welsh on the Students’ Union website?
There is a wider project to make the Students’ Union webpage bilingual. There is an eventual plan to make it bilingual and include .wales and .cymru tags in the domain names. In order to make it as bilingual as possible, the web designer is working with Jeremy Ifans of the School of Welsh.
Rhys Jenkins (RJ)
NP: What were the highlights of this year?
RJ: Ensuring that the exam timetable is released six weeks before the exam period. Speak Week went really well and it was pleasing to have received a huge response. A report of this will be sent to council.
NP: What could have been done better?
RJ: Improvements could have been made at the start of the year. The work done was majorly empirical, but should have taken place throughout the year.
OBK: How are the attainment gap projects?
RJ: This is ultimately subject to the equality charter mark being completed. In addition, it is currently exam time and so focus groups cannot be properly organised. This will be passed onto Sophie for next year.
HS: Would you have liked to achieve anything else?
RJ: The wish list for achievements is quite endless. The greatest example for this list is Lecture Capture, where is has now been decided on which company’s software will be used, but now it is down to the legal side and logistics. As of September, there should be some more schools using Lecture Capture and rolled out from there on.
NP: Do you feel that you achieved most things in your manifesto?
RJ: Most things, apart from Lecture Capture, have been achieved. However on the brighter side, Lecture Capture is at least in the university cogs.
JS: Regarding the recent referendum for a Welsh language full time officer, have any lessons been learnt from this?
RJ: As an officer team, there is relief at the outcome; however there are a group of students who are not satisfied by the referendum’s result. Whatever the outcome, the groundwork had been laid out so there will be at least a year’s work to do in order to improve the Welsh language supervisions to satisfy both sides.
OBK: How do you think you can find a balance?
RJ: This (admittedly) will be difficult. Elliot and Claire are meeting with the group of ‘YES’ campaigners to discuss how to go forward and it will work both ways hopefully so they can communicate what they would like.
Barney Willis (BW)
NP: Could you please reflect back on how you think this year has gone.
BW: Loved this past year, although there is no doubt that it has been very tiring. Highlights from the year have included events where a large turnout has occurred, e.g. Go Global, Fringe.
NP: Could anything have been done differently?
BW: There could have been a system by which groups were able to build societies without the need for the current quorum number.
JS: When you started, people didn’t like the tier systems. What do they think now?
BW: There has been mixed opinion, but students will become used to the system with time - there will always be people looking to take advantage of the tier system for their clubs.
NP: Is there anything that hasn’t been achieved?
BW: Not much was extracted from the university regarding sexual health.
JS: Moving to the subject of the policy on guest speakers, has this been adapted the since Student Senate passed a motion on the security bill?
BW: The idea behind the policy is that the Students Union should invite as many guest speakers as they can through their respective societies. For example, the Islamic society has been given approval for the majority of their proposed guest speakers. In truth this is not something which can be done automatically due to the current vetting procedures.
JS: Are committee members aware of the hurdles regarding the rules and regulations of guest speakers?