The Future Academic Organisation of the University

DURHAM STUDENTS’ UNION

Campaign Response to the Passage through

Parliament of the Bill derived from the White Paper

TO: DSU Standing Committee

DSU Campaigns Executive

Context

The Bill, based on the White Paper The Future of Higher Education, will receive its First Reading in the House of Commons by early November. From here the passage through Parliament of the Bill, likely to be called the Education Bill, will begin. For DSU’s policy response to the proposals within the White Paper, see:

The First Reading of the bill in November begins the passage of the Bill into law. We now need to plan a campaign response for our action during the process. This is with a view to influencing the debate surrounding the Bill, in line with our policy based on its contents, during the stages of its consideration by Parliament. The final reading of the Bill is likely to take place near the end of the Epiphany Term, or more worryingly before the start of the exam period. There is currently a large gap between what Durham Students demand from the bill, and the Government’s current position. If there is not significant change, in line with our policy concerns, in the Bill before its third and final reading then it will be necessary to oppose the Bill, and to campaign against its enactment.

The Response

Campaign Form

Through our initial discussions with student officers still around Durham, we recommend that the strategy we come up with become part of a running, year-long campaign shadowing the progress of the Bill. The contents of the White Paper stand as the biggest issue facing students since the early sixties and we together bear the responsibility of conducting an effective response for the benefit of future students. The gravity of this task needs to be reflected in the scale of our campaign. We propose branding the various strands of action over the next year under a running campaign identity so as to create focus, reflect the scale of the task, increase scope and engender loyalty amongst our supporters. This campaign brand should be expressed in a logo and title. The name of the running campaign should reflect its content, get across the task before us, and also lend itself easily enough to publicity – t-shirts, posters and on. If anyone has any suggestions for the title then please begin a discussion on the email list as any ideas will be much appreciated.

Content: Forms of action

This campaign requires a number of limbs over the year in order to form an effective response to the Bill at home in Durham and one that is carried through onto the national stage:

Correspondence

We need to communicate with MPs and other figures to get points across to those directly influencing the course of debate.

Action at home

We need to sustain a focus in Durham, directly involving our members.

Regional Action

Durham must play a key role in regional action. Hosting an event may give us this opportunity, and allow us to use the North East to increase the scale of action and the captured media attention.

Media

Messages can be conveyed internally, locally, regionally and nationally through effective coverage – by means of print, online, radio or TV media. We must use this to effectively convey our message to Parliamentary decision-makers.

NUS

Opportunities for action are presented alongside other Students’ Unions within NUS.

The Campaign: Initial Plans

Stage 1: Another Brick in the Wall

The NUS National Demo is set for Sunday 26th October, allowing us to capture the enthusiasm of the new term. It is the recommendation of the Senior Management Team that we should adopt a strategy before mid august that will enable a visible Durham presence on the actual march in London, while holding an effective publicity-grabbing campaign in Durham. Bare in mind, the demo will concentrate on issues of student funding and is timed just over a week before the likely date of the First Reading of the Bill.

Time is of the essence, so we believe we need to come up with a strategy. Firstly, we suggest that we create a Freshers’ Fair stall promoting involvement in the delegation going down to the London march. This stall should be fully branded up with the campaign name, logo and details and will hopefully kick-off a loyalty to the running campaign amongst those who sign up right at the beginning of the year.

The simultaneous event at home is important on two counts: firstly we must focus the general attention of students, not just the relatively small number on the bus to the demo, but also on the beginning of this crucial opportunity to influence the Bill and to consolidate the policy of our members. Secondly, an event at home covered by the local and regional media will promote the cause throughout the NE, whilst others of our membership are representing us in London.

The strategy we recommend here will be for each college to create a “Wall of Debt”– representing the barriers and limitations that debt places upon graduates. To this wall of debt students can attach printed coins that DSU will distribute to the colleges, on which students should write the amount in which they are in debt and then add this to the college “Wall”. The backs of the coins will be used for general information. Walls would be also be erected in communal areas such as Dunelm House.

Subsequently, the contents of these Walls, after appropriate picture-opportunities, will be collected together into a giant piggy bank! This will be created from papier-mâché, painted, and then carried around the colleges to collect the debt. The piggy bank will then be emptied from Elvet Bridge into the River, amidst press photography and following a speech kicking off the beginning of the running campaign. Canoeists will then, armed with a net, travel upstream (to Kingsgate bridge) in order to collect up again the emptied contents (This is the method that DUCK quite happily use every year to distribute and collect plastic ducks in their Duck Race). A winning entry amongst the emptied coins will be able to collect a prize.

An appropriate chant may be based on the Pink Floyd classic ‘Another Brick in the Wall’: think ‘We can’t afford no education, We can’t afford no top up fees…Hey Tony, leave those kids alone’!

One Sabbatical Officer will oversee the action at home and coordinate the media attention here, whilst the other two will lead the delegation to the London demo.

Stage 2: Winning the Argument

The policy set by our members on the White Paper is a mature, well-reasoned response to the proposals. Whilst the Bill is in Committee Stage, we will have a chance to influence how it is amended and developed. Our policy response must be sent in packs to Committee members scrutinising the proposals. Meanwhile, we should work on lobbying MPs more generally through correspondence and well-structured debate on the issues. We need to engage fully and positively in the process leading up to the creation of the final set of proposals.

We await details of the Committee membership and are collecting details of MPs likely to respond to our arguments. We have already amassed a list of 172 Members sympathetic to our funding and access concerns through researching signatories to Early Day Motions (EDMs) opposing the introduction of top-up fees. We will be sending copies of DSU’s policy on the White Paper to these MPs over the coming weeks to reinforce confidence in the concerns that they raise.

Stage 3: Approaching the Final Vote

As the stages concerning scrutiny and revision of the Bill come to an end, we will need to evaluate the final set of proposals and decide, in line with policy, how best to campaign in the run-up to the all-important final Parliamentary vote. If the concerns expressed in DSU policy, especially the access and funding elements, are not addressed to the satisfaction of a UGMthen we will need to draw-up a large-scale action in which the running campaign may culminate.

Plans for this crucial period will be discussed in the light of developments in the situation over the course of the year. It is recommended at this point that we look to, if necessary during the final days of the campaign, invoke a regional action, held in Durham and involving delegates from North-East Students’ Unions in order to galvanise the regional voice of students in the NE. It is suggested that media play a very potent role in the strategy and that it be themed, publicised and promoted as the climax to the running campaign that began at the start of Michaelmas.

Any ideas, as always, can be discussed through the email list or in Committee.

Conclusion

This briefing is designed to set the ball rolling on the planning of our response to the biggest opportunity we will have to, in line with policy, influence the shape of legislation that will determine the future of Universities. This is a responsibility that we bear to siblings, our successor students, wider social needs and, also, to ourselves in consolidating the policy that we were meticulous in setting.

We have come up with proposals regarding the initial stage of the running campaign owing to the lack of time between the beginning of term and the National Demo, brought forward from its usual slot at the end of November. However, remember that this is all up for discussion. I think, though, that we should aim to come with solid plans to begin to act upon by the 18th of August. The latter stages may be discussed further in committee in term time.

The Parliamentary process does indeed give us a chance, on behalf of the 12,000 students studying at this University, to make well-known our views on this all-important issue. Many opposition parties have already adopted policy opposing the White Paper and many potential rebel Labour Members have expressed serious reservations in the run-up to and during this very sensitive time for the Government. It is up to us to see that the Government reviews the sections of the proposals that our policy finds unacceptable and to debate, argue and convince them as such. This is the key stage. If we do not convince them with rational argument then we must fall back to a position of opposing the whole Bill, and respond, through further large-scale action, in an appropriate manner to ensure our disapproval of the Bill and its formation process is conveyed.

From:

Craig Jones, DSU President

Andy Beales, DSU Treasurer

Charlie Salathiel, DSU Education and Welfare Officer