I am writing in response to your email of the 11th in relation to our decision to introduce a charge to member unions for NUS Democracy Cards.

The decision to introduce a charge, taken under clause 12b of the constitution by the “Management Committee” subcommittee of the NEC under clause 49f, was a difficult decision to make. That committee is charged under the constitution with the job of “managing the National Union’s finances and resources on a day-to-day basis”. As such we are required both to interpret democratic mandates and ensure that the organisation’s resources are being put to best use.

Because NUS’ members are students’ unions rather than students directly it is crucial that our range of benefits apply to and are used by as many unions as possible; and where some of services are only used by a small proportion of our membership a “charge and central subsidy model”- such as the one used on NUS Events- has been seen as the right decision to make more generally. From time to time we thus review which of our benefits and services are “free”, chargeable with subsidy or withdrawn altogether.

When the “NUS Card” was introduced as a membership benefit in the early 1970’s, it was the only form of student ID available to University and College students. Since that time virtually all Universities and Colleges have introduced forms of student ID and as such that purpose is no longer required.

It has also historically been used as a way of authenticating a student as a member of a union for the purposes of democratic participation in a students’ union; here, too, times have changed, with very few unions now depending on this inherently insecure way of proving that a student is an eligible part of the electorate.

Indeed when over 50% of member unions are now running elections online or using College/University ID cards to authenticate voters, and hundreds of Universities/Colleges place the NUS logo directly onto their ID Cards, the need and demand for the card is low. However last year almost a million cards were ordered by students’ unions- and our research indicated that

· Thousands were gathering dust in store cupboards in unions

· Unions were ordering far more cards than they needed, if they needed them at all

· Thousands of the cards were on sale on ebay throughout the year

Thus this was identified by the management committee as a clear area of waste where NUS’ resources could be better targeted. Already we have halved the overall order of cards by member unions and we are confident that this will not necessarily mean less cards distributed; it means less waste.

In making the decision, we are of course conscious of the policy safeguards put in place by our annual conference on the issue. As a result:

· As per policy the card if distributed will remain free to students

· We will assist any union in negotiations with their institution over ID

· We will assist any union in changing their democratic processes to ensure a continued and secure method of voter validation

· Any union facing hardship as a result of this decision is, as ever, free to apply to NUS Finance Committee under our hardship procedures

I hope this clarifies the decision and the process/rationale behind it. If you do have any further questions please do get in touch

Regards

dave x