The Union's Financial Position
An official announcement on the Union's disappointing financial position.
Students' Union finances have hit a decline this year due to some optimistic decision making and a general trend for trading services that has hit many establishments working hard to provide quality services in Bristol. The trustees of the Union were delivered a financial report several weeks ago that detailed a projection that would see UWESU over spend in the 2006/07 year by £100k due in the main to the entertainments and bars not showing the increases that were expected. But this wasn't the biggest shock, as projections for 2007/08 showed that if action was not taken this would lead us into a financial deficit of over £50k, a situation that the university would most certainly see as untenable to continue funding into the future.
At the start of each year budgets are set in the organisation, with £864,300 coming from the universities block grant, a subsidy from UWE given to the students' union each year dependant on need, and a budgeted expenditure of just over £1,273,000 there was clearly a need to find money to plug the difference. Where would the additional £400k come from? Bars, shops and other commercial ventures. Our Frenchay bars were budgeted to make £ 164,900, with other sites just below breaking even and our shop trade bringing in £171,700. Taking in to account the costs involved in running all of these the rest of the gap is plugged by other income (£116,000), union events (£66,800) and a small sum of £7,400 coming from our freshers' week offering. This whole sum would mean that we were all agreed at the start of the year to aim for a £13,400 profit, or surplus, at the end of the academic year.
But it's clearly all gone wrong. How do we go from believing we'll be making £13,400 to losing £102,500? We were simply overly optimistic in our estimate of how much our trading income at Frenchay would increase as a result of the students now living on campus.
In more precise terms, we were looking to make over £66k on events which meant taking a lot of money on people paying to get into our "club nights" than we spent on putting it on and keeping it secure. In reality we are looking at a loss of £25,300 (difference of £92,100 on budget predictions), an amount probably very realistic as an amount of money we have already lost and are now looking to not increase. This is by far the biggest loss we've made and can only blame ourselves for misjudging the market. Other losses on what was projected at Frenchay (cumulative £28,300), Satellite campus bars (cumulative £20,000) and a freshers' ball where students voted with their feet against the choices made as to what would entertain them (£27,400) have all added up to mean that we are simply going to make £139,300 less than we thought we would.
With the new student village on Frenchay campus bringing over 2000 people onto the campus decisions were made for several years previous that would gently ramp up the scale of social provisions at this university. Both UWESU and the university set out to improve their "customer" based services with both looking to refurbish their premier venues. A change from "Traders" to "Core24", "Refectory" to "OneZone" and our own students' union bar "Venue" changing to "Red" showed the commitments made by all at Frenchay to provide for and capitalise on the new residents. The trouble is that everyone over judged the effects and now we're left making difficult decisions to limit the loss made in the current year and putting the Union on a sound footing for the next year. With surveys and procedures now aimed at actually finding out what students living at Frenchay would like, and understanding the market before we make decisions, there shouldn't be this situation in the coming years.
No-one can deny we made overly optimistic decisions and possibly tried to run before we could walk here, but the changes needing to happen are now underway and we're moving onward with a new sceptical and cautious mind as an organisation, hopefully out of any kind of projected deficit for the next academic year. Saving £20k from sports and societies, as well as over £20k in other areas has taken a big chunk out of that £100k deficit we're projected to make this year. With some small upturns in trade, a little more loyalty (which we rightfully need to work to attain), and a new take on how to plan for things it is entirely acceptable now to think we could ensure that next year isn't as financially ominous as this year will continue to be.
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