We're making bold changes to make sure you have a bigger say in how your Students’ Union works.
Our job is to represent you and ensure your voice is heard. We’re here to help you connect, drive change, and make student life better. Now more than ever, we must stand up for your rights and make UCLan a place where everyone feels they belong.
As a student-led organisation, you shape what we do, how we do it and who leads us. Over the past decade, you’ve engaged with us through Students’ Council, Part-Time Reps, and occasional referendums.
But the world is changing and so must we. You’ve told us you want more ways to get involved – and we’re listening. The way we’ve always done things isn’t enough anymore. It’s time for something fresh, more inclusive and truly reflective of your voice.
It’s time for change.
Why we have to change
Every five years, we review how we represent you to make sure we keep up with the world around us.
Over the past five years, a lot has changed, so we brought in an external expert to review how we work based on your feedback.
For six months, we made it our mission to listen to every voice by:
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➡️ Opening a survey to all students, with 659 of you providing your feedback
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➡️ Holding 3 workshops with students
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➡️ Speaking to University staff about how we can work together
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➡️ Discussing ideas with Full-Time Officers and Student Council
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➡️ Gathering insights from SU staff on what could work better
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➡️ Working with our Board of Trustees to create a new model
What this research told us
❌ You’re not engaging with us
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More of you are running for Course Rep and School President roles, but fewer are interested in Full-Time Officer positions
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Election turnout is dropping – our highest in a decade was 16%, our lowest was just 8% (The recent 'low turnout' general election achieved 52%)
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More of you vote for School Presidents than Full-Time Officers
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Low turnout shows that many of you don’t feel these roles are relevant
Elections voter turnout over the years
❌ You’re feeling burnt out
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We have over 500 student volunteers and just four paid Full-Time Officers to represent over 24,000 students
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Student-led feedback is valuable, but unpaid roles aren’t sustainable
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Many of you find volunteering roles difficult, lonely and hard to deliver impact
❌ You think our processes are slow
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Many of you find our decision-making processes confusing and outdated
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Some systems haven’t changed in over a decade and don’t fit student life today
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The ‘Big Ideas’ platform is less popular and you feel it lacks transparency
Big Ideas submitted and voted on over the years
❌ You need more commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
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UCLan is a diverse university and we need structures that truly support everyone
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Right now, unpaid volunteers represent underrepresented groups
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Many of you already face barriers and you shouldn’t have to work for free
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We need paid roles to properly support your communities
What we're going to do about it
After six months of listening to your feedback and working through ideas, the consultant has recommended this five-step plan.
✅ Build strong student communities around Schools
Create academic communities organised around Schools, with 10 School Reps and paid student Organiser roles to support.
✅ Part-time models for representation
Offer more paid opportunities for you alongside your studies to represent, organise and make change at a University-wide level.
✅ Shift focus to student priorities
Use data and insight to identify key issues and facilitate more all-student votes to select top priorities rather than waiting for your ideas to be formally submitted.
✅ Broaden Equity, Diversity and Inclusion work
Pay you to organise in spaces with under-represented groups, stop relying on unpaid volunteers to do this work and build strong communities around you to stop the isolation.
✅ Burnley and Westlakes representation
We need to listen more closely to those of you studying at Burnley and Westlakes campuses and offer tailored student voice options to suit your needs. You might need different models of representation and that's something we should respect.
What's changing
Our current structures and processes aren’t working. Too few of you know your elected officers or what they do. Too few have had a say in the decisions we make on your behalf. And too few feel we’re addressing the issues that matter most to you. The proposal below is our first step toward fixing that.
Academic communities
🛑 Current structure
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20 School Presidents (elected, unpaid, voluntary student role)
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400+ Course Representatives (elected, unpaid, voluntary student role)
✅ New structure
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10 School Representatives (elected, unpaid, voluntary student role)
These representatives will form the Elected Representatives team and make decisions
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400+ Course Representatives – no mandatory elections (unpaid, voluntary student role)
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Introduction of 5 Community Organisers (paid, part-time student roles) to reduce pressure on unpaid representatives, allowing them to focus solely on student advocacy
Representatives
🛑 Current structure
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4 full-time, paid, Elected Officers. Graduated student or student taking temporary leave from their studies (President, VP Welfare, VP Education, VP Activities)
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President is Student Governor & Chair of SU Trustee Board
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Officers sit on disciplinary panels for students going through process
✅ New structure
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4 part-time, paid current students elected as ‘SU Reps’ to serve as representatives and Trustees
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1 or 2 of these part-time SU Reps to serve as Student Governor
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SU Trustee Board is co-chaired by an external trustee and an SU Rep
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Recruited and trained Student Panel members for disciplinaries (paid, part-time student role)
Our new Officer structure
Priorities and decision-making
🛑 Current structure
- Officer manifestos
- The Big Ideas platform
- Student Policy
- Students' Council remains in its current format
✅ New structure
- Officer action plans
- Student priorities and mandates based on broader student input
- Insight and Research Team (paid, part-time student roles)
- More all-student votes on significant issues
- Students’ Council becomes an open all-student forum led by communities
- Student idea gathering and following work through community
Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)
🛑 Current structure
- Liberation Reps (elected, unpaid, voluntary student role)
- Sectional Reps (elected, unpaid, voluntary student role)
✅ New structure
- Community Organisers for faith, nationality, liberation, and equality groups (paid, part-time student roles)
- More ‘Get Togethers’ for students in different marginalised groups
- Paid student participation in working groups that contribute to university and SU EDI work
- Putting more resource into developing research and insights into the experiences of marginalised students
Burnley and Westlakes
🛑 Current structure
- Representatives (unpaid, volunteer role) in Burnley and Westlakes campuses
✅ New structure
- Community Organisers (paid, part-time student roles)
- Off-the-shelf student voice options per each campus (e.g. Annual Speak Week, online feedback sessions, pop-up booths, targeted surveys)
- Development of stronger insight and research on experience of students and Burnley and Westlakes
Community Organisers
Community organising gives you a way to be involved in decision-making beyond being an elected rep. As a Community Organiser, you would:
- Bring students together to solve issues
- Build networks and host events that matter to your community
- Train and support student leaders to make sure all voices are heard
- Get expert training to help make real change
Student ideas pipeline
Our student ideas pipeline is designed to replace our 'Big Ideas' and allow you to drive even more change at the Union.
Our new student ideas pipeline
Share your feedback
If you would like to feed back on our new direction, just email yourunion@uclan.ac.uk