FairRepresentation
Reserved places for women – Understanding the Technicalities
How will reserved places for women work in relation to the Block of 15 and other NUS committee’s where there are reserved places for women?
The process that that we will use at NUS is the same one that we currently use except that we currently only apply it to FE places, and in the future should this motion pass it will be applied to FE and Women’s reserved places.
Women will have the option to self-identify on their nomination form to indicate to the returning officer and voters that they self-identify as women. There will be a single ballot paper which voters fill out that doesn’t differentiate between the different type of candidate, but the election count itself will run with multiple counts with reserved places.
So for example on the block of 15 it will be:
- We count Women/FE
- Then General FE
- Then Women/General
- Then General/General
Count one: We count Women/FE. 2 places reserved for Women
Count two: Then General FE, 3 left if 2 taken above
Count three: Then Women/General: 5 places if 5 taken above
Count four: Then General/General: 5 places if 10 taken above
If in any of those counts there aren’t enough women then the women that are there are put up for election against RON and remaining places are released into the relevant general pot.
Since student unions have submitted a constitutional amendment to apply fair representation to union delegations, how will reserved places for women work for Union delegations?
This decision is up to The democratic procedures committee (DPC) and has not yet been agreed. However it is role of DPC to facilitate union’s participation in our democratic structures and they have traditionally focused on ways in which to enable, not block participation and the DPC believes that enabling participation within the rules should be the focus.
From a cultural point of view low participation by women is a concern, and where this was a pattern we would encourage students’ unions to look at how they are promoting such opportunities and why participation by women was being supressed.
From DPC’s perspective there are two options.
1. If not enough women stand the union would have to re-open nominations or send less delegates than they were permitted
Or
2. The assumption would be that in the reserved count any women standing were against RON and then the remainder of the places would be open to the general pot.
We would expect DPC to issue instructions to unions soon after conference once the newly elected committee has met.
The situation overall is no different to the general Cross Campus Ballot requirement, i.e. if only 3 candidates stand for 4 places the union would be under represented. The solution is to get enough people to stand and to engage people in representing their union within the national structures.
#FairRepresentation is the right solution to start tackling this issue, to increase diversity and thus quality of candidates standing in NUS Conference delegate and NUS elections and ensure that women get an equal chance to have their say.
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