What is the students’ union’s vision and how has this been developed and achieved buy-in from relevant stakeholders?

Leicester has a vision of being ‘exceptional’ and never ‘acceptable’. This year, we produced a detailed strategic vision, ensuring we have a clear focus for our achievements between now and 2016 . We used an external research company to gather data so we could base our decisions on tangible facts. This research fed into workshops with our trustee board, enabling us to begin pulling together the trends in data, before moving onto workshops with key stakeholders such as the University. Working closely with the University enabled us to produce a realistic strategy, complimentary to the University’s objectives . The student community was also closely involved with this, attending workshops, presentations and focus groups to keep our strategic vision entrenched in their needs and formulated by their own thoughts and feedback.

How is the union working towards and achieving best practice in planning and objective setting?

The Union worked with sabbatical candidates to facilitate them in using the strategic vision as a foundation for manifestos, enabling more effective long-term planning. The new and old teams worked together to develop realistic KPIs to enable efficient outcomes for officers which would directly feed into the broader objectives for the Union.

The sabbatical team also work with senior management at the start of each year to produce a comprehensive annual plan including the objectives of each of the team members, enabling ideas to come into fruition and have detailed planned outcomes.

Further to this, the executive team and senior management team have been working with an external management consultant, ensuring key decisions we made (such as an executive officer over-haul) were implemented as effectively as possible.

What tangible mechanisms to obtain student feedback are being used and is this information being used to improve the union?

We use a multitude of different channels for feedback; face-to face feedback has increased with growth in prominence of Union Parliament (seeing a 150% increase in students standing).

Our ‘blow up office’ goes directly out into the student community, to give them an easy and accessible route to talk to sabbatical officers and give raw, honest feedback on ground level.

This year we have introduced focus groups on various areas including the new executive structure, the way we use our course rep system and the overall democracy of the Union to ensure that the range of students we get feedback from is as broad as possible.

Direct results of face to face feedback include:

• Executive reform to include part-time officers and soon, liberation officers. We are now giving Distance Learners, Undergraduates, Postgraduates and International students a new prominence on campus, with officers dedicated to fighting their cause.
• Opening up our new ‘common room’, offering more seating and cheaper snacks and drinks
• Renovation of student group funding processes

How is the union positively contributing to the student experience?

We have developed a lettings agent, SULETS, to ensure that our students have the best experience of private lettings possible, making our students safer and ensuring they get the best possible rates and properties in Leicestershire.

The ED Unit provides an impartial advocacy service for students experiencing difficulties with courses, ensuring that students get the best from their studying and student experience.

We still ensure the social and personal development of our members, with 212 diverse student groups, and a key partnership with O2 Academy Leicester to ensure the safest nights out for students.

Having renovated our ‘safety service’ this year, we have gone from taking 200 students home safely each night on our mini-bus, to taking around 1500 home with an affiliated taxi company, ensuring student safety, set fees, and a text-service.

We have also introduced gluten-free food across campus for students with dietary requirements.

How has the union demonstrated improvement in the past year, in terms of participation, influence and structures?

This year our Union has engaged the diversity of the student body like never before and has seen student parents bring their children onto campus for the first time and boasting a student parliament including our first-ever distance learning member – streaming content from Missouri, US.

Further to this, Leicester saw record numbers of students engaging with student activities, with 1594 signing up to 212 different groups.

We also saw an increase in voter turn out this year for our executive elections, and record numbers of candidates, including students who self-identified with each of the liberation groups.

Parliament elections were also record-breaking, seeing 150% increase on the number of candidates standing for election.

We gave our students 100% exclusive use of the Union’s facilities, giving them complete ownership of their building.

Leicester can also boast 360 course reps, one for every single year of every course offered on-campus in the University - an increase of 30% on the last academic year.

What successful campaigns and impacts have the union had?

We put thousands of pounds back in the pockets of our students, by campaigning for the University to remove every single hidden course cost, including small charges of 5p for scanning to hundreds of pounds for fieldwork for Geography students.

When the University removed cover sheets in exams for disabled students we fought hard, and got them returned within two weeks, enabling our students with disabilities to have the same access to education as everyone else.

We lobbied about a new mitigating circumstances structure, improving the way it is administered and communicated which has alleviated pressure hundreds of students were facing.

The Living Wage has been successful, winning Labour Students’ Living Wage Campaign of the Year. Leicester Union pays the Living Wage to all employees who are dependent on their earned income, and are working on introducing this more widely.

We have an on-going zero-tolerance campaign, striving to shift the culture of acceptance, and develop a culture of reporting, action and change on campus.

For the first time, we rolled out detailed Liberation training to over 150 students.