As I wrote this long post on Poppys statement I thought Id post it here because I know people have queries regarding full-time Liberation Officers, and I dont want people thinking the associated decision by the Trustee Board is justified. On the financial viability of full-time Liberation officers. Yes, they would have cost a lot of money. Yes, the Guild doesnt have that money in its yearly budget. Every year the Guild goes through the process of putting together a budget, where it assesses how much money it would need in a block grant to carry on running its current services and where it assesses how much money it would need to fund extras that it would like/needs. The University then accepts or negotiates, but ultimately it has an obligation to keep the Guild running. If Liberation Officers were to go to referendum, and were to pass, then the Guild would need to include the Liberation Officer salaries and other associated costs into its budget, for the University to consider. The University would then have to decide to extend the Guilds block grant in line with what the student body has demanded, or whether to deny the extension thereby going against the wishes of the student body. Now, while none of this guarantees full-time Liberation Officers, it puts the Guild into a negotiating position far greater than it currently rests on. Currently we rely on Sabbatical Officers to argue for full-time Liberation Officers (which I have no confidence they do sufficiently, by the way), and the University simply agreeing because they want to do what we ask them to. Putting it into Guild policy and getting the explicit support of large numbers of the student body would put the University (with publicly declared yearly surpluses far exceeding the amount Liberation Officers would cost) into a difficult position, and hopefully would lead them to extend the block grant. After all, its what students want. I dont think the financial arguments hold, not when its something as important as Liberation. If the University shut down all of the services we currently run and cut the block grant by 2/3s then the Guild would be forced to act. It is *only* because the benefits of Liberation Officers are viewed (wrongly) as marginal that the Guild doesnt act. Its also got a lot to do with the fact that the Director of Finance Gill Ball sits on the Trustee Board and *has a vote*, which is ludicrous IMO.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 22:55:58 +0000
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