In September 2004, the Student Representative Council (SRC) ratified the decision of the Executive Committee that KCLSU review its governance systems because:

• they are not relevant to a modern Higher Education environment, but there is pretence by all involved that they do function and are effective
• KCLSU is fortunate because its student members are intelligent and a significant number wish to participate in the democratic systems, but there is limited opportunity for them to get involved on anything other than a superficial level
• currently all 13 members of the Executive Committee are trustees, and it should be examined whether this is an optimum size or a different trustee body composition might be more effective, efficient and prudent
• the legal responsibilities placed on charity trustees does not fit into the current structure whereby SRC is the ultimate decision making body
• our current trustees change annually and are trained every year, some have less training than others due to their role as part time officers, but the current governance structures ask these trustees to carry an equal share of the responsibility and decision-making
• there is little real accountability and transparency of the decisions taken by the trustees
• KCLSU currently has a strong financial position but needs to ensure that its governance systems are robust to cope with potential future crises
• many sectors of society are examining their governance and it would be prudent for students' unions to be conducting their own internal reviews, before external influence dictates the agenda

A Governance Review group was established to include three full time officers, the Union Chair, two senior managers, the Democratic Services Coordinator, and two senior College staff members. They appointed a firm of solicitors, BWB, and a consultant with extensive experience of students' unions, John Windle, to examine how KCLSU's governance measured against good governance standards.

The solicitor and consultant carried out a number of stakeholder interviews with officers, ex officers, members of the Executive, members of SRC, members of KCLSU staff and senior members of College staff. They also attended SRC and reviewed committee papers, policies and procedures.

Based on their findings they made several recommendations. To allow students the opportunity to discuss them, forums were held on 9, 10 & 14 March 2005 at Guy's, Waterloo and Strand campuses. The recommendations were also made available on the website so students could email in their comments.

Based on the recommendations and consultation a model was produced, presented to the SRC and approved on 21 April 2005.

The next stage was the drawing up of the Memorandum & Articles of Association of KCLSU, which were subsequently ratified by the SRC on 17 November and the College Council 13 December 2005.

student.life.support@kclsu.org
020 7848 1588

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