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Ariel Cohen, Communications Officer Becca Melhuish, Operations Officer David Cichon, President
Indi Hicks, Welfare Officer James Hickie, Activities Officer Poppy Firmin, Education Officer
More than 40 students are elected each year to lead the Union. Find out more about them

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► Students' Union Evaluation Initiative

Working towards SUEI logoThe Students' Union Evaluation Iniatiative (SUEI) is a scheme run in partnership with the NUS (National Union of Students) and supported by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills and the Scottish Government.

SUEI is a quality assessment model that aims to help improve the services and activities provided by Students' Unions.

We've been working on the areas that SUEI focuses on such as making sure we listen to what students want, including a wide range of students in the things we do, ensuring our finances and management are robust, making sure that officers and volunteers are well-supported and plenty more.

We were assessed in May 2011, a process which included us submitting evidence of particular things we've done as well as a series of focus groups with students, Union staff, University senior managers and our full-time officers.

Evidence we are submitting

SUEI is divided into five broad sections (A-E) and we are assessed on specific evidence we submit for some sections, statements we've written about our achievements in others and through a variety of interviews conducted by the SUEI assessor with various groups of people as outlined above. Below you can see the evidence we have submitted

A. What's so special about the Union? Participation - Representation - Governance

Number of students who nominated themselves and number of votes for the last three Full-time Officer elections;

Year
 Nominations
 Votes
2009 16 2614
2010 29 3065
2011 27 2638

Details of research & consultation with students regarding academic matters - download [pdf]

Details of student reps system including training provided by the Students' Union - download summary of student reps scheme [pdf]

Attendance records for full-time officers at University meetings - officers attended 92% of the formal University committee meetings they are part of during the autumn & spring terms of this year

Briefing notes before three major University meetings and reports from these to Union committees

Our constitution

We've signed a statement to confirm that we comply with all current legislation, our Health and Safety Policy has been recently revised and has had outside scrutiny, that we have robust review procedures for all student clubs and societies, all evening security procedures work in accordance with good practice and are regularly reviewed and scrutinised, there are no outstanding claims against the Union for personal accident/injury, the Union has not made any Ultra Vires payments [payments for things we're not allowed to spend our money on] in the last two years and that there are no current issues under investigation which should be brought to the SUEI assessors

The schedule for our full-time officer induction and training plus feedback from the 2010 handover process

B. What is this Union aiming to achieve? Vision - Objectives & yearly plans - Member focus

Our values, strategy and strategic objectives - download [pdf]

Our complaints procedure

C. People management strategy - HR systems - Targets & indicators - Roles & responsibilities

Job objectives for a selection of managers

We're preparing to be assessed under the Investors in People scheme which provides best practice for supporting and developing our staff

Our latest set of management accounts (which are issued monthly so we can track how we're doing against our budget)

Information on progress towards targets in a variety of areas

Our Director's appraisal (performance review)

Our environmental policy and evidence that we got a gold Green Impact award

D. Are there quality outcomes? Impact - Reputation - Services

SUEI have what they call 'the killer question' - Is the Union contributing positively to your experience at University? - which they see as a key indication of how successful a Students' Union has been. We (and the other Students' Unions which are part of SUEI) ask students this in our annual Big Questionnaire. These are students' answers to this question for the past five years;

Year 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
% saying yes 73% 75% 64% 66% 73%

The results from our 2010 Big Questionnaire

Local community volunteer statistics - Project V, our community volunteering scheme, has 206 projects registered (each project may register one or more volunteering opportunities with us). 175 students have so far undertaken some volunteering activity since July 2010

Minutes from a couple of meetings we've held with the Council and other local networks

E. What underpins this quality? Communication - Finance - Partnerships

Our suggestion scheme is largely online plus we have comment cards in our outlets

Our 2009/10 accounts and information from our auditors

Our three year financial forecast

Our financial procedures manual

Our risk assessment register (which identifies things which could damage the Union and how we'll reduce these risks)