What’s the Deal with Councils?
Polis is providing the official coverage for the 2021 Student Association Elections. We will keep you up to date with a range of topics, including explanations of the roles up for election, analysis of candidates’ manifestos, interviews and debates with candidates, and presentation of the results.
By Sara and Belle. Research by Hitanshi.
Election season in St. Andrews often feels like it comes out of nowhere. One day you’re happily sauntering into the library, then suddenly the next is a mad rush to get inside as quickly as possible, ideally avoiding eye-contact with the candidates eagerly proffering up brownies. Despite considerable effort, your binder will become festooned with bright, multi-coloured stickers. Well, at least that is what election season is normally like - as with everything else this semester, elections will be taking place entirely online.
Luckily, one thing is remaining constant between this year and the last: the plethora of positions up for election. Most coverage, and indeed most debate, is centred around the sabbatical race, and while the sabbs may be the most visible representatives of the student association, they are by no means the only representation. The majority of the people who stand to be elected come from the Association Councils, a 30+ person body that represents student interests in everything from environmental to performing arts needs. Perhaps the overwhelming amount of positions up for election plays a role in councils being pushed aside by sabb races, or maybe still it’s that many of the roles are often uncontested. Whatever the reason may be, it’s a mindset that deserves to be pushed back against. This article is an examination of the role of the Association Councils, their function within the greater system of University Governance, and ultimately why those two things contribute to councils being fundamentally important bodies that deserve greater attention. But before launching into a discussion of the Association Councils, it’s necessary to first ask: what even are they?
To help better answer this question, our team sat down with Morgan Morris, Chair of the Association Councils. Right away, he highlighted a key technical aspect of the Councils - there are two, the Student Representative Council (SRC), and the Student Services Council (SSC). As the names imply, the SRC focuses on representation and advocating for students, an example of this being the campaign against the closure of the GP out of hours program. Conversely, the SSC deals with the student services side of the union, which includes all the activities available to students via the Union, such as Mermaids or STAR. Within each respective council, there are three main types of positions one can have. The first is Officer, which denotes an individual who is elected by the student body, has voting power on the council, and convenes a subcommittee (fear not, we will explain subcommittees too). The second is a member, which denotes an individual who is elected by the student body, has voting power on the council, but does not convene a subcommittee, as they typically handle responsibilities that are deemed a one or two person job. The third is a convenor, who is appointed, rather than elected, does not have voting power, but does convene a subcommittee. As the name suggests, a subcommittee is a smaller unit of governance, composed of roles specifically designed to help their respective officer/convenor. Here are some examples of how this plays out within actual positions. The Disability Officer, who sits on the SRC and can vote, is elected to fulfill the mandate of representing students with disabilities, and to assist them in that task, they have a subcommittee; this subcommittee could have a social media manager or perhaps an individual tasked with raising awareness of disability in the wider student community. Contrast this to the Member for First Years, who also sits on the SRC and can vote, but does not have a specific subcommittee to assist them. And finally we have the ENTs Convenor, who is appointed by a SSC selection committee which includes the DoES and DoSDA as well as outgoing Convenors, and runs the ENTs subcommittee. Got that all straight? I hope so, because as Morris was keen to point out, while councils are two separate bodies, viewing them as disparate is really only half the picture.
There are several positions, such as LBGT+ Office or Alumni Officer, which due to their remit, sit on both councils, and are collectively referred to as Association Positions. In addition to having roles which straddle both council bodies, councils, on certain occasions, come together to vote on joint-matters such as the association laws, their joint constitution, and standing orders or rules. For instance, the charities committee recently changed how charities will be voted and decided upon for the next academic year; the charities committee discerned that a change was needed, and the association laws stipulated the decision to enact such a change had to be voted on by councils entity as a whole.
And finally, there are the last two administrative bodies: the executive council and the student association board. The responsibility and mandate of these two bodies are complex enough to demand articles of their own, but what is important about them for our purposes is that certain council members are elected to sit on them and vote. Ok, deep breath… we are done! If what has been said so far has confused you fear not, the Student Association has created a lovey graphic to explain it all:
It feels as though there is a question which must be answered - for what ends did we just spend a page and a half explaining the technicalities of student government at St. Andrews? Well, for starters we at Polis are self-professed government nerds, but perhaps more importantly, to provide sufficient background for our next section: the power of councils.
Everything that we’ve discussed so far - the SSC, the SRC, the executive committee - it all exists separate from the University. The Students Association, and by extension, councils, is there just as the name suggests, to be student representation. This is an enormous amount of power for a body to have, as really if you think about, a student population of 7,000+ is relying on around 30 people to best represent its interests. Take the recent University decision to close the Barron Theatre. It goes without saying that this has been one of the more hot-button issues of this semester, and many students have (rightly) been upset by this decision. As students representatives, councils have the ability to ensure those feelings are being communicated. Recently, in a joint meeting, they did just that, as a motion to make the official Student Association position one which opposed the closure of the Barron was successfully passed. But beyond councils working on behalf of students to oppose unwanted University decisions, each officer, member, and convenor is there expressly for the purpose of helping and representing students. Whether it be a first-year specific issue, or an idea you wish to bring to the debating society, there will be a council position designed specifically to help you.
Hopefully, the logistics of how councils can help support and represent students has become clear. And, it would be easy to conclude our argument there - one should care about the multitude of council positions for three major reasons: their power in deciding the collective Student Association position regarding University issues, their decision making over student life specific issues, and the assurance that if you have an issue, the representative designated to help you is actually good at their job. But, there is another inevitable question we must ask, at the risk of undermining all the argumentative work done above: are these promises of service (SSC) and representation (SRC) actually happening day-to-day? Jumping back to Association Chair Morris, his answer is an honest one - yes, or at least both are trying their best to. His three key manifesto points were Transparency, Engagement, and Debate, and in our interview, he acknowledged that each point covered an issue plaguing councils in the past, and helped focus the work being done to improve. By anyone’s standards, things have markedly improved - the meeting minutes are online quickly, more and more students are attending public meetings and engaging with social media posts, and, contrasted with many previous years, motions are getting fully debated and questioned. But like all government structures ever, councils are by no means perfectly functioning utopian democracies.
But that is why we are arguing councils deserve more attention. Don’t read up on the election because councils function perfectly, think about whom to elect in order to see improvement. Your vote is being cast as much for unknown issues as known ones. I don’t think a year ago when we all voted in the election we imagined our Association being thrust into the situation we all find ourselves in today. And so, before this turns into a rhapsodical essay extolling the virtues of citizen democracy we will end here; when election time comes around, remember the council positions - your student future might just depend on it.
