The report of the OUSA Governance Structure Review working party was released this week, and has been met with decidedly mixed reactions. The review was begun in July last year to investigate the effectiveness of governance and representation in OUSA as an organisation.
The report identifies a number of problems with the current system, including the inefficiency of a 17-strong council and the difficulty for Executive councillors in balancing both a governance and representation role.“This group is too large to be an efficient and effective governing board, but not large enough to be an efficient and effective representative body.”
To combat these problems, the report proposes a reduction of Executive members from 17 to 10. The current 20-hour-a-week Vice President role is to be divided into two 10-hour positions, one administrative and one financial, although these hours would be likely to change. A welfare officer, an education officer, and five general representatives would make up the remainder of the council. The report advocates a “bottom-up” system, involving more students in a bid to “reconnect and engage with our student members, in a way that hasn’t happened arguably since the 1990s.”
Under the proposed changes OUSA would coordinate better with effective structures that are already in place, such as OCOM and Te Roopu Maori, rather than try to have specific positions to represent these groups on the council.
Under the new structure, all students can apply to be part of a variety of committees, thereby allowing more opportunities for student leadership. Attributing greater power to these new committees should also act as check and balance on the Executive.
New Postgrad Representative Travis Monk is concerned about the lack of postgraduate representation on the proposed new Executive.
In response to concerns about the lack of representation, OUSA President Harriet Geoghegan says groups will be represented in committees that feed views up to the Executive, which will act as more of a “liaison point.” “Some OUSA committees already function like this – with decision-making and grunt work delegated to a smaller group with expertise … The proposed structure gives the flexibility and scope for as many groups as possible to be represented.” She does admit however that postgraduate representation is still an issue that needs to be ironed out.
Geoghegan and General Rep John Philipson, who are both members of the working party which drated the report, took care to emphasise that this report is only a first draft, and the specifics are still to be settled upon. Queer Rep Ros Mackenzie says that the structure would rely on finer details and the effectiveness of the committee structure. Geoghegan is asking for feedback that will be taken into account when constructing the second draft.
A decision needs to be made before this year’s election nominations open, otherwise the Executice structure would remain unchanged in 2011.
Execcies set to vote themselves out of a job?
