The Elephants in the Room: Building an NUS for the 21st Century - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 51
About This Presentation
Title:

The Elephants in the Room: Building an NUS for the 21st Century

Description:

The idiom also implies a value judgment that the issue should be discussed openly. ... The idiom is commonly used in addiction recovery terminology to describe the ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:168
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 52
Provided by: ChrisW173
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: The Elephants in the Room: Building an NUS for the 21st Century


1
The Elephants in the RoomBuilding an NUS for
the 21st Century
  • Matt Hyde, Interim Chief Executive
  • Strategic Conversation Day, 19th January 2007

2
Format
  • Elephants in the Room
  • What I knew
  • What I found
  • What weve done
  • What were doing next

3
Elephants in the room
4
Elephants in the Room
  • The elephant in the room is an English idiom for
    an obvious truth that is being ignored, for
    various reasons.
  • It sometimes is used to refer to a question or
    problem that very obviously stands to reason, but
    which is ignored for the convenience of one or
    more involved parties. The idiom also implies a
    value judgment that the issue should be discussed
    openly.

5
Elephants in the Room
  • The idiom is commonly used in addiction recovery
    terminology to describe the reluctance of friends
    and family of an addicted person to discuss the
    person's problem, thus aiding the person in his
    denial.
  • The term is often used to describe a political
    hot potato that implicates a social taboo which
    everyone understands to be at issue but which no
    one is willing to admit.

6
Turn Dreams in to Reality
  • Social change wont come overnight. But we must
    always work as though it were a possibility in
    the morning.
  • Martin Luther King

7
What I knew
8
What I knew
  • MORI and the Year of Change
  • Extra money spent before achieved
  • Students Union Exasperation
  • Many people think NUS unreformable
  • NUS not perceived as VFM
  • State of Students Unions

9
State of Students Unions
  • Brewed products down 46 1996-2006
  • Trading net surpluses 19 down since 2004
  • Significant deficits
  • Mass redundancies
  • 700 jobs lost in last three years one every
    working day
  • Many facing closure/ takeover
  • Charities Act opportunism

10
What I found
11
Full Reality of NUS Finances
  • 2001 Deficit 304k
  • 2002 Deficit 244k
  • 2003 Deficit 899k
  • 2004 Deficit 773k
  • 2005 Surplus 1.25m
  • But2.3m sale of Holloway Road (in accounts
    as 1.75m)
  • 2006 Deficit 300k (est.)

12
Forecast 2006/07
  • Off Budget (k)
  • Extra 667
  • Associate Card 140
  • Additional 200
  • Total off budget 1,007
  • Forecast deficit 956

13
Challenge set myself
  • Interviewed 48 staff
  • Ask same 5 questions
  • 1. What change about strategy doc
  • 2. How better serve CMs
  • 3. Hope
  • 4. Concern
  • 5. Advice

14
Half baked strategy
  • Vast majority of staff not read strategy doc
  • The strategic plan is too long and has too many
    objectives
  • Were bad at prioritising and were not brave
    enough to know what to drop
  • Were constantly fire-fighting
  • The document needs focus

15
Ambitious or What?
  • the strategy document essentially says
  • we will do
  • everything
  • for everyone
  • forever

16
Two organisations?
  • Communication between the centre and regions is
    poor
  • The language of servicing to organising can be
    seen as clumsy and not clear
  • There is a them and us culture between HQ and
    the regions

17
NUS Finances
  • NUS Extra is an example of what I call casino
    economics too high risk, too fast, too soon
  • We need more diverse income streams
  • The invisible chapter is our relationship with
    NUSSL
  • We should concentrate more on fundraising for
    projects theres so much money out there
    potentially

18
Officers and Staff
  • The NEC need more staff support
  • I dont actually know what the NEC do
  • We need more thinking time to plan
  • It feels like we get edicts from on high from
    them rather than a proper supportive relationship
    with our officers

19
What do for Students Unions?
  • Were generally very bad at communicating with
    students unions
  • We rarely tell SUs what weve achieved
  • We need to focus on and understand students
    unions better
  • Ive never been in a students union

20
Positive Observations
  • Passion
  • Raw intelligence
  • Excellent examples of teamworking
  • Some pockets of member focus, financial controls,
    strategic planning, excellent delivery
  • Members, NEC and staff saying the same thing!
  • The NEC are rising to the challenge
  • A good foundation to build on

21
Bring on the elephantsThe Issues NUS has to
deal with
22
Serious problems
  • Vision and Strategy
  • Overall Membership Focus
  • Governance
  • High Performing People and Culture
  • Overall Structure
  • Finance
  • If we dont deal with these NUS will collapse

23
Vision and Strategy NOW
  • No clarity of purpose what is our core
    business? What do we do and who for?
  • Lack of prioritising
  • No planning cycle
  • Staff/ SUs not consulted on overall strategy
    formulation
  • Need to integrate both long term vision and
    strategy with need to rapidly respond to officers
    and CMs

24
Membership Focus - NOW
  • Limited focus on students unions agenda
  • Students unions are rarely listened to
    systematically and their needs are not responded
    to in a strategic, organisational sense
  • There is no evaluation of how we are doing in
    this respect, but anecdotal evidence suggests we
    are discredited amongst the majority of our
    membership

25
Governance - NOW
  • Some improvements recently, but still
  • Overly bureaucratic
  • Has evolved piece meal
  • Inaccessible and inflexible
  • Unclear lines of accountability
  • Costly
  • Lack of support for student officers
  • Disconnection between officers and staff
  • Places pressure on staff to deliver

26
Culture NOW
  • No planning culture (constant fire fighting)
  • Many staff de-motivated and overwhelmed long
    hours culture
  • Little performance management culture (inc.
    feedback/ support)
  • HR systems chaotic and HR policies and procedures
    work against the organisational objectives
  • Not outcome-focused
  • Does not celebrate successes well
  • Low level of management competencies

27
Structure - NOW
  • OMD/ DCC them and us culture
  • No clarity about how each furthers the goals of
    organisation and how they relate to each other
    (e.g. who communicates with our members?)
  • Structure doesnt allow us to both plan/deliver
    and react/respond (constantly caught between the
    two)

28
Finance - NOW
  • Inequitable fees model for SUs
  • Dependency on one source of income
  • SUs do not think we offer value for money
  • Lack of transparency of how money is spent
  • Poor financial controls
  • Lack of clarity in financial information (but
    improving)

29
Vision and Strategy - FUTURE
  • Organisations strategy constantly meets the
    changing needs of our members
  • Measurable KPIs and metrics
  • Control core areas of business esp. campaigning
    function and interface with CMs
  • An effective campaigning organisation

30
Membership Focus - FUTURE
  • Customer responsiveness engaging, involving and
    responding to students unions
  • Focus on and involve students unions as members
  • Regular sampling and market research on what
    members need
  • NUS staff know what SUs want and deliver this
  • High approval ratings from SUs

31
Governance FUTURE
  • A democratic structure with clarity between roles
    of officers and staff
  • Agile
  • Cheaper
  • Accessible
  • Model enables organisation to make decisions that
    benefit members
  • Market research/ evidence informs decision-making
  • Officers supported to focus on representation and
    leadership and not operational duties

32
Culture FUTURE
  • A can do approach
  • Clear planning cycle
  • Strategic and Business planning embedded in the
    organisation
  • A service-led culture of high performance with
    objectives for organisation/ department/
    individuals that correspond to members needs
  • Staff know their role and are held accountable
    for their performance
  • Managers highly skilled, and trusted, with
    responsibility devolved
  • Successes celebrated across the organisation
    jointly by staff and officers

33
Structure FUTURE
  • Effective cross-departmental working
  • Multiple accountabilities
  • Able to respond locally and coordinate/ plan
    nationally
  • Clarity in role of all departments and staff in
    delivering this
  • Sticking to the knitting and partnerships/
    insourcing/ outsourcing for rest

34
Finance - FUTURE
  • Stable funding model
  • Diverse income streams (more grant/ project
    funding)
  • Seen as VFM from SUs
  • Transparency over how money is spent
  • Effective financial controls
  • Clear financial information

35
Comment
  • Do you agree this is what we should be aiming
    for?
  • What is right/ wrong/ missing?

36
What weve done
37
What weve done
  • Management programme
  • Endsleigh
  • Estimates

38
Endsleigh background
  • 1965 NUS found Endsleigh
  • 1977 Gouda control Endsleigh
  • 2002 MBO
  • Zurich buy 45 share
  • Become l-t strategic partner
  • Zurich had future option to extend shareholding

39
Endsleigh 2006 deal
  • Conversion of ordinary shares
  • 2m taken out in cash
  • (option to purchase building to avoid 340k CGT)
  • Remainder tied up in preference shares in
    Endsleigh
  • Yield an additional 450k per annum (total
  • c. 1.2m pa)
  • This additional income used to reduce affiliation
    fees

40
Endsleigh 2006 deal
  • Majority redeemed at 3 years notice (remainder at
    15 years)
  • Advice secured to confirm no tax payable
  • Retain two places on Endsleigh Board
  • Management of Endsleigh continue
  • Improved affinity agreement

41
NEC agreed to
  • Cut the current take in affiliation fees by 10
    for 2007-08
  • Budget worst case scenario for Extra and
    Associate Card
  • Build these assumptions in to 2007-08 estimates
    to go to Conference
  • Begin the process of reducing costs

42
Estimates
  • First draft shows 889k deficit
  • NEC set target to drive down to 300k
  • Cutting waste and bureaucracy
  • Share back office functions with NUSSL
  • Estimates out end of month
  • Importance of NUS Extra long term

43
What were doing next
44
Interim Management
Improvement Board
President Gemma Tumelty
Interim Chief Executive Matt Hyde
Interim Chief Operating Officer
HR Specialist Finance Specialist  
Scotland Wales NUS USI
DCC DOMD
Central Services
45
Financial Principles
  • Affiliation fees reform
  • Reduction in gross fees take by 10
  • Strip out over 500k of costs
  • Sub-contract where most effective
  • Business development to NUSSL
  • Invest in fundraising capacity

46
Principles of Change
  • Focus on students unions as members
  • Champion students unions
  • Focus on campaigning and learner representation
  • Engage with rest of Third Sector
  • Effective governance
  • FE is different from HE
  • But the principles of the learner voice are the
    same

47
Our mission?
  • MORI said two roles and two audiences
  • Students representing them nationally
  • Students unions developing them and supporting
    them
  • NUS exists to
  • - promote, defend and extend the rights of
    students and
  • - develop and champion students unions.

48
Todays Workshops
  • Students
  • - Campaigning and academic representation
  • Students Unions
  • - Focus on Governance and Quality
  • Value For Money
  • - Latest on fees reform

49
Summary and Conclusions
  • Honesty and openness
  • Full extent of financial situation
  • Plans to get out of this
  • Full extent of organisational problems
  • Vision of what were aiming for
  • Now need detailed plan of how we will achieve
  • Some initiatives being consulted on today
  • There is a critical role for students unions in
    driving this change

50
Time now to do
  • Vision without action is merely dreaming.
    Action with no vision is just passing time. But
    with vision and action you can change the world.
  • Nelson Mandela

51
Thanks for Listening Comments and Questions
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com