A brief history of students’ unions in the UK

I was lucky enough to start my career in higher education from within students’ unions. My two years as an elected officer at the University of Southampton Students’ Union (SUSU) were a couple of the best in my life so far. There is such an intensive vibrancy and energy to students’ unions; however they’re a beast that many working in higher education never get a chance to experience.

What are students’ unions? I’ve pulled this blog together to give my perceptions and experiences around what students’ unions are and ultimately how they are a force for good in the world.

Firstly, what students’ unions are NOT

Some of the common misconceptions about students’ unions include:

• “They’re just made up of students” – although students’ unions are indeed run by elected students, they will also have a dedicated team of staff who work to support them.
• “SUs just run parties and bars” – students’ unions are often on the forefront (and yes, often ahead of their corresponding university) when it comes to organising events that cater to diverse student groups and those not interested in drinking.
• “They’re a department within the University” – students’ unions are separate legal bodies, registered with the Charity Commission who run independently from their partner institution. The 1994 Education Act sets out the definitions of students’ unions in the UK and gives certain responsibilities to university governing bodies to ensure that students’ unions run in an independent, yet democratic manner. Many schools and colleges will also have their own students' union.

However, the single most important thing that you need to know about students’ unions is that the apostrophe goes after the ‘s’. They are unions that belong to the students. Remember that and you’re ahead of most.  

A few tricky terms to deal with

Here are a few quick terms that may help you delve into the reading and understanding more about students’ unions:

• ‘Sabb’ – a sabbatical officer (also known as a full-time officer). A democratically elected student representative who works full-time (and is paid) to represent students. The original name for a Sabbatical Officer comes from the fact that they would take a year out between their studies to perform this representative role. However, it’s now more common that sabbatical officers are elected in their final year and thus carry out their term once they have just finished their studies. The annual Officer elections, where dozens of students campaign around campus for votes, is one of the highlights of the SU calendar.
• ‘NUS’ – the National Union of Students – the national confederation that has represented and brought together the vast majority of students’ unions in the UK since 1922. Not all students’ unions are members of the NUS – Southampton wasn’t a member when I was a Sabbatical Officer and they still aren’t now – however, the vast, vast majority of students’ unions (over 95%) are.
• ‘Block grant’ – whilst many students’ unions will generate some income from running commercial outlets (e.g. campus shops, bars, clubs, cinemas, etc.), unions will almost always be supported financially from their partner institution. These lump sums of money given annually to a students’ union is referred to as a ‘block grant’. Many debates and discussions over the years have centred around how students’ unions can maintain their independence, whilst still being financially supported by their universities.
• ‘Liberation’ – roles and activities that are intended to support students who face oppression in society because of their identities. Many students’ unions will host some initiatives to better support students who identify as black, disabled, LGBT+, trans or women. These often include networks where students can meet each other and campaigning efforts.

Where did it all begin?

There are records of student representative bodies in other European countries much earlier than the UK. For the United Kingdom, it was Scotland that led the way in advocating for student representation. This occurred through the formation of student societies in the 18th Century and advocating for the role of student representatives on the most senior university decision making bodies in the 19th Century. The Scottish Education Act of 1858 lays the foundations for how students should be selected to sit on a University’s Court.

Students’ unions developed across the rest of the UK during the 19th Century, but often focused more on social topics and were rarely given access to university decision making bodies, thus restricting their ability to represent the views of students. The National Union of Students (NUS) was then formed in 1922, supposedly as a way to bring together the world’s future leaders, so that the mistakes that had led to the First World War could be avoided.

Campaigning and representing on academic matters in the 60s and 70s

At this point, the role of students’ unions and their elected student representatives was still quite limited in the UK. Whilst some student representatives were allowed to sit on decision making bodies, these were often restricted to committees that discussed catering, extra-curricular activities, accommodation and sometimes library provision. Allowing students to input on teaching and learning was still quite rare.

It was also during this period that students’ unions began much more commonly to have dedicated space on campus and to employ staff teams to run commercial outlets, such as bars. With this growing capacity and frustration around a lack of opportunities to represent students academically, students’ unions grew their appetite for campaigning.

In 1969, the NUS adjusted its constitution to allow campaigns on topics beyond those strictly related to students. Whilst the NUS and students’ unions did campaign in this period against rent-rises and grants-cuts, it also campaigned against South African Apartheid. The public nature of the latter types of campaigns came to define the student movement.

Legal changes in the 80s and 90s

Across the 80s, academic representation within universities became much more commonplace and so most students’ unions developed their own forms of course representatives.

However, within the political realm there was a great deal of antagonism expressed towards students’ unions. The campaigning activities of the 60s and 70s had allowed Conservative politicians to paint students’ unions are inherently left-wing institutions. It was the intention of the then Secretary of State for Education, John Patten, to make students’ union membership only work on an opt-in basis – therefore dramatically reducing the numbers of students involved, as was the case in Australia. This was never realised, however the 1994 Education Act did allow students to opt-out of their students’ unions. It’s rarely ever been utilised in the 25 years since the Act passed.

The less than positive political view of students’ unions did lead to an important change in how they were funded. Whilst previously, students’ unions received their income from local authorities (who also paid for students’ tuition fees and maintenance grants at this point), it was argued that there was no accountability for how students’ union funds were spent. Students’ union fees were therefore moved into part of the tuition fee set by universities and paid directly by the institution. These block grants would significantly affect the relationship between students’ unions and their partner institutions, especially when the income students’ unions received from commercial activities started to decline in the new millennium.

The approach to the National Student Survey

The National Student Survey was introduced in 2005 as a way to measure student satisfaction from final year students across the UK – I’ve written more about it in a previous blog. One of the questions included within the survey was to ask students how satisfied they were with their students’ union or association. This allowed students’ unions to be ranked for the first time. The survey was initially met with some protests from within the student movement, however these soon subsided and the NSS was embraced as a vehicle for collecting student feedback and adding pressure on universities to improve the student experience.

In 2017, changes came in two different forms. Firstly, new questions were introduced into the survey and the students’ union question was changed to focus solely on how well they represent students on academic matters. Secondly, the NSS was linked to the newly emerging Teaching Excellence Framework as one metric that would allow universities to be classed as either Gold, Silver or Bronze and adjust their tuition fees in line with inflation.

The NUS and many students’ unions across the country encouraged students to boycott the NSS as a measure to protest this direct link to tuition fee increases. The boycott was successful in a number of universities, where response rates dropped below the 50% required for NSS results to be published.

What’s next for students’ unions?

Looking forward, here are a few aspects of students’ unions that are still unfolding or may deserve some more thorough investigation than I can offer in this blog:

• Partnership with the OfS – The Office for Students, established in 2018, has taken on the formal role of a regulator for higher education. It is actively working to protect the interests of students, which overlaps significantly with students’ unions. The main difference could be that OfS seems to be primarily aiming to protect students as ‘consumers’, whereas most students’ unions adopt the ‘co-producers’ model of involving students in the improvement of the student experience.
• What will the NUS look like in the future? – The NUS is currently in a period of financial difficulty and many areas within the organisation have had to be cut. The role the NUS will be able to play in supporting students’ unions nationally will therefore be affected in coming years.
• Student representation vs. learning analytics – Many universities are starting to invest in learning analytic systems so that the behaviours of students can be tracked and utilised to provide more personalised support. Universities will understand more about the needs and behaviours of their students than they ever had before, something which they previously relied solely on student representation systems for.
• We manage what we measure – will students’ unions change their priorities now that the measurements within the NSS have changed? Will we see an increasing focus amongst students’ unions to support students with academic representation? Will the incoming introduction of a postgraduate NSS lead students’ unions to do more to represent their PG members?

Thank you for getting this far. To reward you, here's the old campaign banner that I used during my Sabbatical election, when I was asking students to "Join the Gilani Army" - I still can't believe that it worked either.

If you found this useful or interesting and want to learn more, then I thoroughly recommend this report on students’ unions by Mike Day and Jim Dickinson, this article on the NUS’s campaigning history and this paper on the changing role of students’ unions.