Representation Review
Last year, we ran a review of our democratic structures...
You might have heard that Bristol SU undertook a Representation Review in the 2023-24 academic year.
This year, we’re implementing these changes. Keep reading to learn more about the process behind the decisions we’re making!
What is a Representation Review?
A Representation Review is a review of the democratic structures within Bristol SU. Our primary goal has been to better understand what you (students) think about our representation and democratic structures so that we can make sure they're working for you. After all, we want to be inclusive and collaborative for the whole student body – especially when it comes to democracy and representation.
The democratic structures we have been reviewing include:
- Academic Representation structures
- Liberation function (Networks)
- Campaigns
- Full-time officer structure
- Democratic events (Student Council and AMM)
What's changing?
For the last 10 years, Bristol SU has used Networks as a campaigning and liberation structure. Across the years, they’ve been part of important work, such as working to decolonise the curriculum, pushing for the creation of a Gender Expression Fund and running Reclaim the Night marches.
However, especially since covid, these groups have become more of a space for community building and it has become more pressure for simply one person to be the sole representative of the issues of the marginalised group they were elected to lead – especially without being paid.
So, what’s the solution? Introducing your new Student Community Organisers! Six paid Student Community Organisers will be elected in the 2025 TB2 elections. These roles will focus on enabling campaigns by going to where students are, building and connecting vibrant communities, and building power through shared interests to make real change happen on campus.
You can read more about these changes at Bristol SU in a recent article.
How did students have their say in the review?
As part of the review, co-creation sessions were held with SU staff and student leaders to explore an alternative liberation structure for Bristol SU. In these sessions, an alternative for Liberation was developed.
A motion was then brought to Student Council and passed in October 2024, which commits Bristol SU to exploring and developing this alternative and making changes to our democratic structures over the next 12 months.
You can see all the work that happened in the lead-up to the co-creation sessions below.
2023/24 Representation Review Updates
What has happened so far?
So far, we’ve done an in-depth piece of research – including one-to-one interviews with Full-Time Officers (FTOs) and SU staff members, as well as eight in-depth focus group discussions with students, and an all-student survey.
There’s a lot of data involved in the review, with research such as the all-student survey capturing a diverse range of student voices and conversations with SU staff enabling us to gather experiences and feedback on working in our democratic structures.
In addition to this, we have also run three co-creation sessions and analysed our existing data to provide insight into student opinions and behaviours.
The review so far has focused on three areas: Liberation, Full-Time Officers, and Academic Representation.
Our findings
The findings of our Review revealed a wealth of insights.
Students told us the current network structure is attempting to fulfil too many functions and it’s not clear how you get involved to campaign if you care about liberation.
As well as a need for more diverse interaction methods, three top barriers to participation in campaigns were reported by students. These were:
- Time Constraints
- Lack of Information
- Financial Challenges
The current structures, therefore, are seen as obstacles instead of supportive. This means that students can’t campaign in the ways that they want to with SU guidance.
Bristol students are passionate about liberation issues but do not want to get involved with the current network structure. Because of this, students have suggested a shift from liberation identities to Liberation issue-focused democracy and expressed a desire for structures that are not tokenistic, and that have agency.
The importance of liberation roles becoming paid positions, to ensure equitable opportunity for marginalised groups to run for leadership roles, has been emphasised.
A focus on liberation
The data collected in our research told us that representation and campaigning around equality, diversity, and inclusion issues (which we call Liberation altogether) is a priority for our students, with urgent challenges to be addressed.
Currently, our liberation work exists within our Network structure, and we know this isn’t working for all our students, especially those who need it the most. As a result, we’ve focused our initial changes on improving how we campaign and represent students on Liberation-related issues.
Why are you running a Representation Review?
Because we have to! No really, we are legally obliged to undertake a review of our democratic structures every 4-5 years.
We know there’s a lot that has changed since our last major review took place, and to make sure our structures are working for everyone and have time to be changed for the next academic year, we’re running the review now.
