This week has seen the annual NUS Conference take place at The Sage Gateshead which has seen NUS Scotland President Liam Burns elected as the new national president of NUS. 2010 ended pretty badly for the NUS leadership with outgoing President Aaron Porter facing harsh criticism from within the student body and from the sub-movement which in part had led to Porter not seeking re-elections.
The new president has a long road ahead to try and re-build the damage done to NUS reputation and to try and reconnect with a student body that seems slightly more distant to NUS than any other time in its history.
Liam Burns took the time to talk with TNC on the last night of the NUS Conference, he will take over as President of NUS on June 1st 2011.
The New Current (TNC): Congratulations on winning the NUS Presidency…
Liam Burns (LB): Thank you very much
TNC: How do you think the conference went up in Gateshead?
LB: Really good the conference as a whole was fantastic we’re passed some really great policies which are going to be really positive for student lifestyles next year. And more specifically on the elections obviously am happy with the result, the process itself was very positive, all the candidates even if I disagreed with some of the points they where making where credible, legitimate and inspired many of the students on conference floor. So year just incredibly positive.
TNC: What do you think the biggest challengers that NUS faces now?
LB: We’re got three challengers. We’ll have the white paper coming out very soon that’s going to be the governments attempt to prop up the fees regime that they have created it could involve privatising of universities well see more detail about interest repayments from students. So there is going to be a whole host of measures we are going to have to step up to the mark and criticise.
Equally, in terms of the specific criticisms your talking about with the student movement, obviously we are going to have to be honest about those tensions often between anti-cuts groups and student unions locally and start to try to create enough space so that we can use multiple tactics when it comes to trying to undermine the fees regime. These are a few of the challengers we are going to face and we are going to have to see what parliamentary mechanisms we have at our disposal to be able to win some of these changes.
Credit: NUS/Drew Stearne
TNC: How do you think NUS will be able to relate students after this years Motion 703 (to make NUS more democratic) how do you think the new NUS leaders going to work with that particular student body who are now talking about setting up an alternative national union?
LB: I think the hype about setting up an alternative is just that to be honest, hype. I think the criticisms that are coming from that agenda are legitimate, I don’t agree with them, but we are going to look into them. The one member one vote system I’ve been quite clear through my manifesto as well that we will look into those options of what we could may be do to look at students on the ground in how they can be involved in our democratic structures more openly the delegate system.
We’ve got recommendations coming back this year.
TNC: Can NUS work with this broader student body?
LB: We have to be careful when we talk about the broader student body I don’t think the decisions we have made this year are out of kilter with what broader students think. That’s not to say that a minority of students who have criticism of our approach are wrong to have those criticisms. I guess what I want to try and do is give space to now have robust conversations try and find compromise and shared positions where we can and where we can’t we should just be honest with the fact that we have different views on how we take our campaign and also our democracy forward.
TNC: You’ve had a lot of experience in Scotland, how do you think your going to be able to transfer what you have done up in Scotland to the national union?
LB: Some of it’s a huge opportunity some of it’s going to be a huge personal challenge. In mean in Scotland we don’t don’t have tuition fees we where able to win an extra £50 million student support over the past three years. We have a really good relationship with all the political parties and we have just managed to get tuition fees ruled out by all the political parties going into Scottish elections.
So what that proves is that there is an alternative that the decision that the coalition government made was political, they are not a neccesity, and I think that should be a powerful narrative for us to take forward. In terms of challengers I’ve obviously got a lot of learning to do am hugely looking forward to wiorking with student unions and students officers to try and find out a bit more about their concerns. But I have been on the national executive for the past year so am quite aware of the national debates that are going on.
TNC: What would your message to the students be, where do you stand what are you going to do for them?
LB: Where going to be looking into trying to find a more authoritative stance on student support. We made a mistake I think a few years ago when we made the decision to de-couple how you fund the institution and how you fund the individual student. And now there is a debate about the national bursary scheme, fee waivers are being hotly debate across universities. We need to do some real research into what will work and what will not work for students in terms of money in their pocket and how students are supported financially.
Another thing I would say is that we are going to be at a difficult time for the next year at least. There are going to be students who are going to be more towards direct action and I want to make space for us to be able to use that tactic as locally it is going to become increasingly more relevant. But equally there are students who are not comfortable with direct action and are far more comfortable talking to their MPs, letter writing, petitions and equally we have to bring those people along with us as well. And that’s the work I want to take forward over the next few months.
TNC: What is going on about potential Fee Waivers by universities?
LB: There is a debate going on now of whether universities offer fee waivers to students so that they don’t pay the full fees, so say £9,000 they would pay £4000 or do you use that money to go back into students pockets while they are studying. A lot of universities are having debates of where to put their resources in that regard and we don’t have an authoritative answer.
TNC: Do you think that it’s beneficial to students for their unions to pay upwards of £50,000 to affiliate to NUS and then ask students for a further £11 for their NUS Extra Card?
LB: I have always said don’t buy NUS Extra is you don’t shop in the places NUS Extra has discounts. All the research that we have done shows that a vast majority of students make far more money back than the £11 that they pay. If you don’t shop in the stores don’t buy NUS Extra, it’s not a hard sell it’s meant to be a benefit to students and we can’t keep getting those national deals and keep developing the card without some cost attached to it.
Equally on affiliation fees we’ve cut affiliation fees for next year. We recognise that we have to cut our costs when student unions are having to do the same thing and there is a long term commitment that we have to keep reducing affiliation fees and our dependence on that sort of income, and that’s where things like the NUS Extra come in.
How much has the fee been reduced by?
I honestly cannot tell you off the top of my head, we’ve frozen num so that will equate to a real terms cut in someway.
Towards the end of the interview I asked Liam if NUS would continue to use the delegates who have been at the conference throughout the year as a voice for NUS on university campus. Though this is not likely to happen any time soon it would be a good step in the direction of bringing more students information of what the national union is doing. But he did say something that made sense in that ‘the local unions are gatekeepers of the information about what NUS are doing/planning and NUS doesn’t want to over step their role’.
It will be interesting to see just how much information comes back from the conference to university campus’s across the country.
