Patrick Cullen
20 November 2007
After six weeks of in-fighting, the Constitution and Steering Committee (C&S) was no confidenced for the fourth time in three years at last week’s Union General Meeting (UGM). The committee, which ensures that the LSE Students’ Union (LSESU) adheres to its constitution, had three separate Chairs and three resignations during the course of the first six weeks of term.
The motion of no confidence was partly due to C&S’ ruling that the Miss LSE contest breaches the LSESU’s Equal Opportunities policy. Brought by a member of the Athletics Union, the motion was backed by Elle Dodd who had recently resigned from C&S. In her speech in support of the motion, Dodd claimed that C&S should be no-confidenced on grounds of “systematic incompetence”.
Helen Roberts, the chair of C&S, told The Beaver that she was “shocked” at allegations “that we are incompetent; it is simply not true. I feel that it is rather unnecessary and unproductive to have made these unfounded allegations. For the whole term we have, without fail, sorted out all the motions [and] advised on many issues: the RAG constitution, Miss LSE, the society’s constitution, the Palestine letter and more. … Since being appointed Chair I have discussed … the possibility of an office hour to help out people who want to write motions and additional meetings every week to discuss issues other than motions including the Governance Review.”
Rachael O’Rourke, who was secretary for the committee until 12 November, declared in her letter of resignation that C&S was “bickering, lazy and incompetent”. O’Rourke told The Beaver that Andy Hallett, the vice-chair, was “disruptive and insulting” in meetings.
James Ketteringham, who resigned after undergoing weeks of what O’Rourke described as a “barrage [of] childish, insolent remarks and personal attacks … made by those without the best functioning of the committee at heart”, told The Beaver that Roberts lacked “knowledge [and] willingness to meet and answer e-mails”.
Roberts responded, “What Ketteringham has said is untrue…I do not lack knowledge to answer emails and I find it insulting that he would say this … Ketteringham has personal issues with members of C&S which is clouding his judgement … He quit C&S over a month ago and obviously still has unresolved issues which he should talk to individuals about rather than spreading gossip and slander.”
O’Rourke accused C&S members of incompetence and inability which hampered the running of the committee. Roberts, elected Chair after Ketteringham’s resignation, was described as being “too busy for long meetings”. She added that both Roberts and Hallett had also “shown consistent disapproval of SU regulations.”
Roberts told The Beaver that “there had been an issue finding a good time for meetings” but the problem was being addressed “with an additional weekly meeting”. Further, she defended Hallett as often saying “things he doesn’t mean”, and that he is “committed”. However, she agreed with O’Rourke that Tony Luo “hardly ever showed up…effectively we were a six member committee”.
O’Rourke also said that “SU work seems to take concerned members a lot of time and effort that is often rendered futile by the damage done by [others] too lazy, incompetent or self-interested to fulfill their duties”.