Leeds City College Students’ Union

Leeds City College Students’ Union win the Further Education Students’ Union Award

Further Education Students’ Union Award

1. How has the union ensured that it meets the needs of its members?

Lccsu has listened to its members always.
We have introduced a new Student voice system to ensure full accountability of all college departments. We now ensure all groups have the opportunity to feed back to the college Completely impartially VIA online forms. They have the advantage of being fully traceable.
Introduced a student policy panel, with student groups being able to review ALL policies the college changes which may alter them.
We have the right (an do) attend most college meetings enabling us to represent students needs and perspectives in many forums such as: E&D committee, Principles meetings, campus managers meetings, annual planning meetings, H&S meetings, Green(efficiency meetings) Quality Meetings, Student voice management group meetings and many more. in fact, our challenge now is ensuring we have capacity to attend every opportunity.

with concerns about bullying, we introduced an anti-bullying reporting system, and have set up a task and finish group with E&D committee to address. With concerns about complaints procedure, we have become part of the college official complaints process, allowing us to track and monitor complaints and outcomes. with concerns about disciplinary representation, we have become part of the disciplinary system (representing).

Listening to students we now engage employers and have business partners who endorse our volunteering opportunities.

We undertake enterprise activities meaning we now self fund (inc. increased NUS Extra sales) and have been able to appoint 4 full time sabbaticals and 1 part time staff for the following academic year. (mainly self funded)

We are sustainable

2. How have the activities of the union resulted in a positive impact for students and the community?

Significant impact is being achieved with the college amending and altering the way it behaves and approaches things in most areas.

Students voices are heard and this has many impacts E.G. water fountains have been improved, printing in library improved, Student voice system improved as as a result of feedback. curriculum now action things and students voice management informs curriculum strategy across the college. Making T&L more exciting with varied learning styles giving students a better change to succeed.

Where the SU supports students in complaints this ensures the right outcome for students’ and good examples of this are ones which have E&D consequences. as a result one complaint we are currently in the process of altering enrollment to ensure any opportunity to discriminate is removed.

Hundreds of Students gain work experience with the SU brilliant for employability skills. they help with data analysis of Student Voice, run our shop, deign our website and media, plan and organised trips, promote products and meetings, make funding bids. In fact, students run our SU which is highly valuable work experience.

We have improved social space making it far more inclusive and safe. we have won social/study space areas back and now ensure students are consulted on all matters affecting them.

We have won better outcomes on course alterations/ closures ensuring existing cohorts are not affected by college decisions and can finish there course.

Primarily, Students now have an impartial and effective representative who can impact any matter on there behalf.

3. What steps has the union taken over the last year to ensure that the democratic processes that are used to make decisions are open and inclusive?

LCCSU has taken the following measures:

Trustee board established,
Letter sent to Governing board (of college) to request certain rights (all agreed) such as freedom of speech policy to be implemented
constitution being reviewed,
policy past and implemented
communications with group reps improved significantly
communications with students improved.
executive meetings utilised to confirm important short decisions.
motions debated at AGM & student council to instruct SU activity.
AGM run with quoracy hit for first time (Q=150) attendance over 170 (with piers telemaqce speaking - soc and sit)
introduced Sabbatical contracts clearly defining LCCSU officers not employed by college.
introduced LCCSU/ LCC partnership agreement (ensuring full autonomy)
Publishing of LCCSU accounts in member areas (improving compliance and transparency)
Introduced Equality Forums (enabling liberation/specialist group feedback)
introduced equality reps
introduced an apprentice officer
used student voice analysis (analysis of over 8000 student comments) to direct LCCSU activity on key themes.
group rep training given including how to write a motion
group rep name changed to Students’ Union ambassador (improving viability)
trustee board Rag rates democratic OItems inc. 1994 education act
will soon measure constitutional compliance (agreed by trustee board)
Ensured trustee board is student dominated
All Volunteers/ work placement / officers given induction explaining democratic processes.
communications regarding officer elections improved significantly with now every student having multiple notifications about elections.
feedback taken on democratic structures
minutes available to students online of all boards

introduced adult, community, part time and apprentice forums & systems to engage non attending students.

4. How is the union perceived by its members, stakeholders, officers and staff, and what is it doing to improve its perception?

4 years ago LCCSU was completely inactive with the only full time sabbatical president on long term sick.
2-3 years ago LCCSU was struggling for basic rights such as: access to staff directory, ability to attend meetings, chairing students council/ student voice meetings.
No one really new who LCCSU was or what we do. staff did not respect us, respond to us, invite us, or collaborate with us.
Now the following can be said for each group referenced:

Members: all members who engage direct are supportive, thankful, happy, and believe we are delivering for students, standing upo for them and making an impact. they recognise we are developing and that we are a powerful infuencer. we continue to get more and more referrals from others.

members are now at least aware we exist, and roughly what we do, some better than others. this is a significant improvement from nothing. we hear the voice of these students and much of our attempts to improve visibility are as a result of requests from our members do do so.

Stakeholders: the college and the governing board have deep respect for us. that respect is of collaboration and partnership. college staff see LCCSU is a serious union engaging students and with a genuine desire to improve the college for members. In some cases where we address departmental improvements or procedural failure) we can sometimes be perceived as a concern. however, this is generally useful because it directs college staff to pay close attention.

Nominated by Craig Clements, Students’ Union Officer

What the judges said…

“Clear evidence of a fantastic and successful journey to really build a thriving Union, empowering its members and providing great service. Really clear statement of planned outcomes with really powerful delivery of those.” Mark White, Association of Colleges

“The team at Leeds City College Students’ Union have had a busy year reforming their policies and procedures to make them more accessible and transparent to students as well as securing important changes at the college across a number of issues. As a result of the Union’s action, students at Leeds City College now have a number of ways of accessing representation and influencing college decision-making – a key challenge for students’ unions in large further education colleges.” Shane Chowen, NIACE