UCU

Loughborough University:

AUT Constitution
(APPROVED at the 2001 AGM)

1. Name
The name of the Association shall be "The Loughborough Local Association of University Teachers", hereinafter referred to as the Local Association (LAUT).

2. Constitution
The LAUT is constituted in accordance with the Rules for the time being of the Association of University Teachers, hereinafter referred to as the AUT.

3. Objects
The objects of the LAUT shall be those of the AUT, namely, the advancement of University Education and Research, the regulation of relations between University Teachers and their employers, the promotion of common action by University Teachers, and the safe-guarding of the interests of the members.

4. Membership
Membership of the LAUT shall be open to those members of staff of Loughborough University who qualify for membership under the rules of the AUT currently in force.
There is a special category of postgraduate membership open to those who, ineligible for any other category of membership, qualify for this category under national Rule 3.6.

5. Subscription
Members of the LAUT shall pay a monthly subscription to the funds of the LAUT and in addition the monthly subscription to the AUT as laid down in the rules of the AUT currently in force. These shall be payable to the Treasurer of the LAUT by the end of each month, but by mutual agreement subscriptions may be paid by monthly deduction from salary. The amount of monthly subscription to the LAUT shall be determined from time to time by the Annual General Meeting. Any member whose monthly subscription is more than two months overdue shall be given notice by the Treasurer of the LAUT that his/her subscription is overdue and that, if his/her subscription is not paid within one month of such notice, his/her membership of the AUT shall cease.

6. Use of Funds
The funds of the LAUT shall be used for:
Expenses properly incurred in conducting the business of the LAUT as shall be determined by the Committee.
Payment of expenses of Council representatives only incurred in attending Council meetings.
Payment of fees and expenses of any other representative duly appointed to represent the LAUT.
Such expenditure as shall from time to time be determined by a majority vote at a General or extra-ordinary General Meeting, provided that such expenditure does not conflict with the objects of the Local Association.

7. Officers
The Officers of the LAUT shall be:
President
The President shall Chair all General and Committee meetings of the LAUT. He/She shall be eligible to vote at all meetings and to cast the deciding vote in the event of a tie. The President may delegate to other officers such duties as she/he may decide subject to the agreement of the Committee.

Vice-President
The Vice-President shall assist the President and in the absence of the President shall perform the duties of President.

Honorary Secretary
The Hon. Secretary shall act as the primary contact for the membership; ensure that a member of the committee deals with any personal case involving any member; deal with the correspondence of the LAUT except where specifically delegated in this constitution, or delegated with the approval of the Committee of the LAUT; be the spokesperson of the LAUT, and perform such other duties as the President and the Committee shall decide.

Honorary Treasurer
The Hon. Treasurer shall have custody of the funds of the LAUT and authority to make payments from them as the need arises. He/She shall keep the books; issue to members a receipt for subscriptions; and present the accounts of the LAUT annually for auditing. The audited accounts for the preceding year shall be presented to the LAUT at the Annual General Meeting.

Assistant Honorary Secretaries
There shall be two Assistant Hon. Secretaries to assist with the work of the Hon. Secretary subject to the approval of the Committee. They shall organise, prepare and circulate agendas, and minute all General Meetings, Committee Meetings, and such other meetings of the Association as the Hon. Secretary or Committee shall decide. Also they shall deal with all routine correspondence and documents passing between AUT Headquarters and the LAUT, and organise the tasks that response to this correspondence entails. The allocation of these duties shall be the responsibility of the local Committee. In the absence of the Hon. Secretary the Assistant Hon. Secretaries shall deputise and perform the necessary duties.

Membership Secretary
The Membership Secretary shall be responsible for overseeing recruitment and for keeping the membership records. The Membership Secretary will ensure that all statutory and Rule requirements of membership records are met and that information is passed to head office within the time limits set and in the form required. These duties may be performed by another Officer, as the Committee shall decide. The Membership Secretary shall act, where necessary, as Assistant Honorary Treasurer, assisting the Hon. Treasurer and performing the necessary duties in the absence of the Hon. Treasurer.

Casual Vacancies
If an Office is vacant between Annual General Meetings and no ballot is being held for that Office, the Committee is empowered to fill the vacancy from members of the Local Association. Officers so appointed will retire at the same time as if they had been duly elected at the last Annual General Meeting.

8. Committee
There shall be a committee of the Local Association responsible for conducting the day-to-day business of the Local Association. The Committee shall meet not less than twice every term. At all Committee meetings a quorum shall be 6.
The Committee shall consist of the following:

The Ex-officio members, being the officers of the LAUT as set out in 7 (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f) and (g) above and any member of the LAUT who is an officer or member of the Executive Committee of the AUT.
Up to eleven ordinary members.
Up to four co-opted members whose co-option is to be ratified at the next General Meeting. Members may be co-opted for a specific purpose only, and shall retire at the next following Annual General Meeting.
A record of the attendance of members of the committee, at its meetings and at General Meetings, will be kept by the Hon. Secretary, who may include this information in the Report to the Annual General Meeting.

9. Election and Removal of the Committee
The Committee shall be elected from the membership of the LAUT at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) by ballot or show of hands as the meeting shall determine. Nominations shall be called for at least four weeks before the AGM and shall be circulated with a provisional agenda for the the AGM. Retiring officers and Committee Members shall be eligible for re-election.
The period of office of the Committee and the Officers shall be from 1st August for a period of one year. After the AGM the current Committee and Officers, and those just elected for the following year, shall jointly attend Committee meetings until the current Committee retire on the 31st July next: this should enable the orderly transfer of duties.
Any Member of the Committee (including the officers as set out in 7(a), (b), (c), (d), (e) (f) and (g)) may be removed from office by resolution at a General Meeting of the LAUT provided that (i) the terms of any such resolution shall be notified to the Hon. Secretary not less than 14 days before the General Meeting and (ii) the proposal for such a resolution is supported in writing by not less than twenty-five members of the LAUT. The proposed resolution shall be dispatched to each member of the LAUT by the Hon. Secretary not less than seven days before the General Meeting at which the proposal is to be considered. Any General Meeting which shall have removed a member or members of the Committee in accordance with the above shall have the power to replace any member or members until the next following AGM.
No officer shall hold the same post for a continuous period of more than four years.

10. Duties of the Committee
The Committee shall be responsible for conducting the day-to-day business of the LAUT.
The Committee shall elect two members of the LAUT who with the President and Hon. Secretary shall represent the AUT at meetings of the Academic and Related Staff Negotiating Sub-Committee of the University Staff Review Committee. The committee shall also elect an alternate member who may stand in for any one of the substantive members, when required.
The Committee shall decide the duties of individual Committee members at its first meeting after the AGM. The work of the Committee shall be shared amongst the Committee members so as to prevent inordinate burdens being placed on the officers of the LAUT. These duties may include:
total responsibility for the organisation of the LAUT office, and the organisation of the routine work of the Clerical Assistant.
circulation of notices, documents, Bulletins, and other literature to members with the help of the Clerical Assistant.
organisation of special meetings for groups of members which may include research staff, academic related library staff, academic related administrative staff, academic related computer staff, and such other groups as wish to convene meetings.
inter-union liaison within the university, that is with other unions representing employees and those representing the interests of students.
departmental organisation and representation. The member shall organise a meeting open to all members in each department once a year. Such a meeting will be attended by at least one of the officers.
the drafting and editing of LAUT documents.
to assist the Membership Secretary in all matters relating to recruitment.
such other tasks as the President, Hon. Secretary, or Committee shall determine.

11. Departmental Representatives
Each department, academic and related, should have a representative.
Representatives shall be nominated and seconded from AUT members in their department. If more than one member is nominated the Committee shall arrange an election.
If no nominations are forthcoming the responsible committee member as specified in 10(c) above, shall attempt to obtain a volunteer.
The duties of the representatives shall be:
To hold recruitment information and forms, and to recruit new or non-members in their department.
To encourage members to attend meetings and participate in the LAUT, and when appropriate, organise meetings of members within a department.
To assist the Hon. Treasurer in the collection of subscriptions.
To aid the circulation of AUT documents.
To assist in the transfer of information between Committee and members in their department and vice versa.
To attend General Meetings and Committee Meetings as required.
To assist in other matters as the officials or Committee may determine.
Representatives shall have the right to attend a meeting with the Local Committee, which should be held once in each term, to be known as the Local Council.
The term of office shall be from immediately after the AGM until immediately after the next AGM.
The representatives may be removed by a majority vote of AUT members in their department.

12. Annual General Meeting
The AGM shall, if possible, be held in the first half of the summer term. At least fourteen days notice of the final agenda shall be given to members. Twenty members of the LAUT shall constitute a quorum. The Annual General Meeting in addition to electing the Officers, 7(a) - (g) and ordinary members of the Committee shall elect an Hon. Auditor or Auditors, and the representatives of the LAUT to the Council of the AUT with two alternate representatives. The Committee shall have the power to fill temporarily any vacancies among its Council representatives until the next General Meeting when representatives must be properly elected.

13. General Meeting
The Committee shall call at least one General Meeting per term, giving at least one week's notice to members in writing. Any member can require an item to be placed on the agenda by giving written notice to the Hon. Secretary. Twenty members of the LAUT shall constitute a quorum for a General Meeting.

14. Extra-Ordinary General Meetings
An Extra-Ordinary General Meeting may be called by the Committee with only 48 hours written notice to members for the consideration of urgent business. An Extra-Ordinary General Meeting shall also be called by the Hon. Secretary with only 48 hours written notice to members upon receipt of a written request signed by at least twenty members of the LAUT. Only matters included on the agenda shall be discussed at an Extra-Ordinary General Meeting. Forty members of the LAUT shall constitute a quorum for an Extra-Ordinary General Meeting.

15. Quorum arrangements for formal business
Where an Annual General Meeting, Extraordinary General Meeting or General Meeting is unable to complete items of formal business required by national or local Rules, or resulting from trade union legislation, or from membership of the TUC, because the meeting was not quorate, the arrangements set out below will apply.
Formal business is (a) the adoption of audited Local Association accounts; (b) determination of Local Association budget including the setting of the local subscription; (c) confirmation of any financial or membership data required by the Association in order to comply with its rules, or to make returns to the Certification Officer or any other body designated by legislation, or to the Trades Union Congress; (d) determination in local rules of the manner in which the Local Association's funds will be held; (e) the appointment of Local association officers and auditors; and (f) any matter which the General Secretary notified the Local Association was required by legislation.

Where a quorum has not been achieved for the purpose of conducting such business, notice of a further meeting will be circulated to members to take place no later than 14 days from the inquorate meeting. The agenda of the further meeting will be restricted to this incomplete formal business. It will be quorate if three members are in attendance, except that in respect of items (a) and (d) above, these three will not for purposes of the quorum include the Local Association's Honorary Treasurer or its local auditors.

16. Local Council
The Local Council shall be a consultative body to keep the Committee aware of the current interests and concerns of departments. The Local Council members will be circulated with the Minutes of the Committee and shall have the right to submit papers for consideration by the Committee. The Local Council shall be subject to such rules as the General Meeting of the LAUT shall determine.
These rules and any subsequent changes to them will be notified to the membership of the LAUT at least fourteen days before an ordinary General Meeting. The rules may have effect only if they receive the votes of two thirds of all members present.

17. Conduct of Meetings and Voting
Committee and General Meetings shall be conducted according to such standing orders as shall from time to time be agreed at the AGM. All questions at Committee and General Meetings shall be decided by a simple majority of the votes of members present, except as provided for in 24 below. Voting shall be by show of hands, except as provided for in 18 below.

18. Ballots
At the request of a General, or Extra-Ordinary General Meeting, there will be a ballot of all LAUT members.
All ballots will be conducted in accordance with this Rule, other than industrial action ballots which will be conducted in accordance with national Rules.
The Committee will appoint a scrutineer who is not a member of the Committee.
Not less than 14 days before the date fixed for counting the ballot, the ballot forms shall be sent to each member of the Local Association. The scrutineer shall supervise the distribution of ballot forms and the whole conduct of the ballot and shall in particular fix the date and time for starting the count of the ballot. The completed forms received by the scrutineer before the start of the count shall be opened in the presence of the scrutineer and at least one Officer of the Local Association. All members shall be informed of the time of the start of the count when the ballot forms are distributed. The ballot shall be secret. The result of the ballot shall be determined by the single transferable vote system and notified in writing forthwith by the scrutineer to the Honorary Secretary and as soon as practicable by the Honorary Secretary to the members of the Local Association and to the General Secretary of the Association of University Teachers.

19. Motions
A resolution of a General Meeting is a motion that has been approved while that meeting was quorate by a simple majority of members present and voting except as provided elsewhere in these rules.
Any motion (other than an emergency motion) submitted by the Local Association to an ordinary meeting of the Council of the Association of University Teachers shall be circulated to all members of the Local Association and approved by a quorate General Meeting of the Local association or by a ballot of the local membership.

Emergency motions to Council, or motions to Council which have not been discussed by a properly called General Meeting and are also urgent and timely, must be agreed by a majority of the Local Association's Council representatives.

20. National Specialist Group Committees
All motions to the annual meetings of the national Specialist Group Committees should be approved by a quorate General Meeting or by the Committee.

21. Discipline
A member of the local association who has evidence that any member of the AUT has voluntarily and without contractual obligation assisted in the selection for compulsory redundancy of individuals in contravention of the national rules, may lay a complaint against that member by submitting that evidence to the secretary of the local association. The secretary shall forthwith circulate to the committee any submission so received and the Committee shall consider, as soon as is practicable and in any case within one month of the secretary's receipt of the submission, whether there appears to be substance in the complaint. The Committee may take such steps as are lawfully open to it to investigate further the validity of the complaint provided that the Local Association shall not conduct any proceedings in the nature of a trial or hearing on the issues. The Committee shall report to the member who laid the complaint whether after any investigation under this Rule it believes the complaint likely to be substantiable. The Committee may then assemble the documentation which is required to accompany a complaint under national Rule 27.4 and forward such a complaint in accordance with that Rule and it shall do so if so instructed by a General Meeting.

22. Validation
No act done in good faith under these Rules by the Committee, an Officer or any other person or body shall be invalidated only by reason of the subsequent discovery of a defect in, or the expiry of, their appointment.

23. Rules
No rule or rules of the LAUT shall at any time be in conflict with a rule or rules of the AUT currently in force. Changes in the rules of the AUT shall, where applicable, automatically constitute changes in these rules of the LAUT.

24. Amendment of the Constitution or Rules
The constitution and rules of the LAUT may be amended by resolution of any General Meeting of the LAUT. Proposed amendments shall be handed in writing to the Hon. Secretary and shall be circulated by him/her to all members of the LAUT at least ten days before the General Meeting at which they are to be considered. Any proposed amendments must be put to a General Meeting within 3 months.
Amendments to these rules must be carried by a majority of at least two-thirds of the members present and voting at the General Meeting at which they are considered. All rules of the LAUT and amendments to these rules shall be subject to approval by the Council of the AUT or if the said Council directs, by the Executive Committee of the AUT.

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© Loughborough UCU Committee, October 2007