Monday 18-01-2021 - 00:00

Update from Anna Marshall, Opportunities Officer

I'm excited to announce the democracy review results are in! You can click through straight to the full report here, or to understand how the report was created and what our next steps will be, keep reading.

Quick recap… 

For those of you who may not be aware, one of my main priorities for this year was to lead on a full-scale review of Durham SU’s democracy. A ‘health-check’ was conducted last academic year (which you can see here), clearly indicating the need for a review of democracy at Durham SU, and the 2020 SU election period further highlighted the desire for change from within the student body. 

Before I formally took up my role, I conducted listening exercises open to all Durham students, who helped me gain insight into this issue. In September 2020, using a majority student panel, we recruited an external professional to conduct research into how Durham students would like to have their say through democratic processes, based on the ‘Democratic Goods’ theory. Alongside the external professional, a steering group of student volunteers was set up to oversee the creation of the research methodology and tools used, aiming to increase the transparency of this work amongst students. 

Many students took part in the research, by filling in the survey or attending focus groups and we’re now at the stage of receiving the findings and analysis of that research. This means we can begin to formulate ideas and models for how Durham SU’s democratic process could be overhauled, based on a foundation of current student opinion.   

Research findings  

Let me start by saying a huge thank you to everyone who has supported this project so far. From the 1,002 students who took time to give us their views by filling in the survey, to our student ambassadors who helped us reach so many participants – it’s really been a huge team effort to get to this point and I’m hugely grateful. With a topic which can be as frustrating or divisive as this, I have huge gratitude to those who managed to sensitively convey their honest perspectives – it takes some courage to say difficult things, but it takes patience to give criticism respectfully, and I am grateful to those who afforded us this. 

Over the Christmas break, our external partner, Miragold, analysed the data collected through the survey, and supporting focus groups, and the findings are in. The full report is available for students to read here, but I’d also like to share the findings that stood out to me, as well as an indication of what I’m planning to do next.  

1. Decision-making is currently felt to be concentrated in the hands of too few people. We need to work out a system which allows as many students as possible to have their say in what the Students’ Union decides to focus on. Students want the final vote on policy to be directly done by themselves, rather than elected representatives – which would mean wider circulation of voting information and more direct democracy which any member of the SU can vote in. Students potentially seem less interested in creating/discussing the policy. They just want to be involved in the voting stage – which requires some thought as to how we’d do this.  
2. We need to create a less binary voting system. No one disagreed with the concept of needing a wide range of options to vote on. Policies, when being created, should be looking to set out at least three options, rather than simply being an “accept or reject” system in which students aren’t clear of the consequences. This is also covered by the strong agreement that decision-makers need to know the consequences of their decisions. 
3. Communication will need to be better. Our current democratic Assembly has no student secretary/communications officer role, but engaging students in our communications strategy will be increasingly important. Potentially Assembly representatives will have to take on a more communications-type role, to brief their students on the voting options in mass voted decisions. This is helped by the majority being in favour of receiving SU political decision information even if they hadn’t asked for it – so potentially more emails from the SU. 
4. The way in which we share resources, as well as power, has to change. The role of student leaders within the SU, such as Association Presidents and the Chair of JCR President’s Committee, should be formalised. They could be seen as part-time Officers and be given the resources to equal this. We could then increase consultation with these leaders, and that would lead to clearer communication and transparency in decision-making. 
5. The lack of trust which many students place in the SU is a barrier to our democracy. Many of the survey responses demonstrate a level of distress which will have influenced the way people have filled out this survey. The democracy review cannot end this year but must be a continual development process. I hope my successors will undertake regular spot-checks, including short surveys, to gauge student opinion on these five democratic goods, and I want the system we build this year to be flexible enough to adapt to changing student perception of the SU. 
6. We really can’t please everyone – but I can now use these numbers to find a situation which most students can agree to. 

So, what happens next?  

The hardest part of this review project is yet to come. Now that we’ve got a solid evidence base for how Durham students would like to have their say through democratic processes, we need to put those views into action and test out some interpretations of this. 

In this research, one of the ways students have told us they would like to make decisions is by being presented with several possible options. I’m taking this on board straight away and so the immediate next action for me is to create a number of different potential democratic structures that could be implemented at Durham SU. The structures would be in place of our current Assembly and sub-committee structures. I’ll be working on these in the coming weeks, as well as getting student feedback on the possible options, and I hope to have something to share with you soon. 

Longer term and depending on what changes are proposed to our existing structures, we’ll need to have the appropriate governing bodies vote to approve any new ways of working. Another thing students told us through the research is that having an individual say on decisions is of importance to them. Again, taking this into consideration, it’s likely that we’ll need to hold a referendum in the Easter term before any changes are made. This will give all students the opportunity to influence the change they want to see to the way their SU does democracy. 

Thank you again to everyone who’s been involved in this process so far and if you’d like to be involved in future or have any questions, please do reach out to me directly via email su.opportunities@durham.ac.uk.