At the latest Students Union Trustee Board, remedial action was taken to address the additional organisational costs resulting from the changes to NI
There has been much talk in the media about the changes being implemented by the Government as it tries to ask businesses to pay more to allow investment in other social services. Unfortunately, these changes don’t discriminate by types of employers and include charities and universities as well as business and industry.
In October, the Students Union joined with other charities and the National Council for Voluntary Organisation (NCVO) in an open letter expressing concern about the lack of exemption for charities and the impact this could have on services. Whilst the government response recognised the valuable work done by charities, no exemption would be offered.
The impact of the increase in Employer National Insurance contributions, coupled with an increase in the National Living Wage means that the Students Union was faced with an increase in its current payroll bill of over £90,000 per year from April.
As a Students Union we are funded by a block grant from the University of £832,000 each year. This level of support has not increased for over a decade, and it has been confirmed that, despite the identified increase in costs, it will not increase next year.
As a result, the Trustees of the Students Union have had to make some difficult decisions to ensure the charity can continue to deliver within its available resources this year and next.
These actions include:
► A freeze on recruitment of currently vacant positions, which means the staff team will start at least 10% smaller than last year, with more staff becoming part-time.
► A freeze on non-pay budgets, which mean that any inflationary increase in costs need to be absorbed by efficiencies or doing less.
► A reduction in the number of sabbatical officer positions from 4 to 3, meaning a smaller Executive Team.
► A need to remove the costs of subsidising trading outlets, which means changes to the hours of operation and types of service.
In taking these remedial steps, the Board have been clear on the need to try and minimise any impact on student-facing services.
As some regulars may have seen, we have moved away from providing a staffed daily food and coffee service at our Verve outlet over the last weeks due to this no longer being financially viable. This space remains open and available for students to use, with some free tea and coffee so students can continue to socialise, use as study space or just chill in between academic commitments.
We have also had to move to a revised evening menu at Ember (from 3pm onwards). This decision has been taken following a review of operation and the level of demand for our main menu items over the past year, whilst recognising the Union is the only place to get hot food on campus after 5pm.
The new evening menu will offer students a selection of readily available products that can be delivered quickly at affordable prices, These include hot dogs, sausage rolls, pizza’s, breakfast baps and nacho bowls. Ember's main menu items will continue to be delivered from 11am through to 3pm as normal.
This will also allow us to free up staff resource to other area’s as required and operate more efficiently, as the new menu does not need for the kitchen to be fully operational.
The voice of our members matters, so we have been gathering feedback from students using Verve on how we can make this space work for them in the coming months, if you have not had a chance to share your thoughts already then drop some feedback here.
Over the last week, we've heard from a wide variety of students about what they would want out of the space. We have been working particularly with our student groups that use the space to accommodate events, as well as to how we can enable them to use the space more in future. We are currently collating the feedback we have had so far to look at what is possible going forward, but we will keep you updated via our news on the next steps.
If you have contributed so far then a huge thanks for taking time to do so
Precious Ogbein
Chair of the Trustee Board
Staffordshire University Students Union (CIO 1173330)
