Union Senate (26th February 2025)

As VP Ed Dem was unable to attend, written answers to pre-brief questions were submitted and reviewed during the meeting. Further questions were asked:

- Is the expectation that students should be approaching PATs when they wish to meet, or will the PAT project outcomes include a recommendation that PATs should be more proactive in offering support?
- What is involved in the role of a 'Project Champion' in the student voice life cycle?

Are there other avenues to explore with using The Cube (other than a club night); are societies being approached for ideas?
- Yes, there are other possibilities than a club night but due to health issues I have had to prioritise projects with more student interest

Are the club & society badges something senators could get to see before they are launched? (so long as this doesn’t delay launch)
- Yes, senators can have sight of badge scheme before it is launched

How many of the 362 spending reviews will be reasonable to go through? Are we looking at the current situation or is historic spending being looked at? What happens to grant money that is “left over”?
– Focus is on most recent grant round funding. Confident that I will get through them all as it’s not an expansive dataset. Nothing is happening to money left over, but outcomes of project may inform future grant round funding.

Is your work on grant funding connected with VP Activities’ work on the same? How can we ensure consistency of messaging for both clubs and societies?
- Work is separate but related, with a focus on financial inclusivity – this is being prioritised in training for next year’s committees.

Do you have a sense of why Wide Lane Bar didn’t see enough students to make it feasible? If students were asking for it be opened, why do you think they didn’t attend as much as was hoped for?
- A couple of clubs were the main drivers, when those clubs weren’t playing there was a dip in sales. There is a wider issue with spectator numbers at Wide Lane, working with clubs to try and get those numbers up.

Could Grant Round Funding be on a rolling basis?
- Grant rounds are positioned around when clubs need to spend money (BUCS fixtures etc) – if this was on a rolling basis, the money might have already been spent by grant round 3. Additional time taken up with grant round allocations would exceed the team’s capacity.

Questions based around EDI training:

Will the training be in-house or external?
- Training will be delivered by an external provider.

What incentives will there be for committees to complete the training?
- Training completion will be necessary to attend bunfight. There will be additional incentives but this is a new piece of work so details are still being worked out.

Who will be required to complete the training?
- Different committee members will attend different parts of the training - the plan is to have breakout sessions.

Outdoor lighting – is this something landlords are required to maintain under the accreditation scheme, as many student properties have outdoor lighting that is non-functional, and landlords are reluctant to fix? Does this cover lighting around the property e.g. alleyways and back gardens - students are worried about people breaking in via these areas.
- Lighting maintenance is covered by same requirements as other maintenance – you can give landlords a deadline to resolve and if they fail to meet this deadline you can report them to the council. Will investigate whether lighting needs to cover outdoors areas e.g. gardens & alleyways or just front doors.

If landlords are selling student properties, does this mean overall supply is reducing? Is this going to become an issue?
- Some landlords are exiting markets due to Renters Rights but other parts of bill should limit rent increases and ensure students have a better experience.

The increase in the maintenance loan does not cover many students’ year-on-year rent increases, so why is this campaign less of a priority? Are there plans to lobby for a year-on-year, above-inflation maintenance loan increase? 
 - Yes, would want to see year-on-year increase but there isn’t a structured campaign to get behind. Talking informally to sabbs from other unis and looking at how we can push for this.

Can you say more about what your involvement in the SUSU+ working group has looked like?
- Main role has been providing students’ feedback on app functionality.

Plant Based Universities have expressed interest in attending another senate meeting, the plan is to hold an extraordinary senate meeting with a pre-brief that sabbs and senators can attend.

SUSU is currently reviewing its Rules, this is also something that will need to be reviewed by Senate so another Extraordinary meeting will be held for this.