SU accused of mismanaging society cash

The Students’ Union has been accused of acting questionably regarding the finances of certain societies.

Suggestions were made to the _Boar_ that money had been unjustly removed from Warwick Student Cinema’s account. Speculations were also made regarding the amount of profit that the Union was to receive from the Real Ale Society’s 2011 festival.

Fergus Cooper, the President of WSC, said that a financial misdemeanour had occurred over the summer when £3,700 was removed from the society’s bank account. It was later revealed that they had been charged for an invoice sent by sound associates that was actually meant for the Warwick Arts Centre.

The SU’s previous Finance Officer, Andy Perkins, had put his signature on the paperwork. However, Cooper said that the matter had partially been resolved as they had received 82.5 percent of the £3,700 back.

Last year the Union had to cut funding including that of the Societies Federation. Societies Officer, Andy White said this was due to reasons such as the rebuilding of the Union, the low turnout to the previous year’s SU events and the _Boar_’s debt.

This led to the suggestion that all societies give £1 of each individual membership fee to the SU. Until this academic year the WSC charged students £1 to join their society. When they became aware of the suggestion through an article published in the _Boar_ during term three, Cooper said that he contacted the Societies Officer at the time, James Hall, to ask if the idea would ever come to fruition. Hall informed Cooper that this would not be the case.

Therefore, when WSC sent off for publicity materials for the next academic year, they left the membership charge at £2.50, only to be informed after this that a £1 charge from the membership fee was expected to go to the SU. Therefore all of the WSC’s publicity materials contained the wrong information, costing the society £1,600 to correct.

Societies officer Andy White, Finance Officer Stuart Stanley and Cooper later went to the Board of Trustees regarding this issue and WSC has since been promised £1,600 will be deducted from their publicity bill in term three in order to compensate them for the error. White said that the WSC would be “harder hit” than other societies regarding the extra charge per member because of their low membership price and because the society has the largest subscription on campus (currently there are over 2,000 members in the WSC).

When questioned about the issues that the WSC had faced, White said that the Union was responsible for 240 different societies, 70 sports clubs and all of the administrative work this requires. He estimated that there had been five complaints of money going missing since he had become a Sabbatical Officer and said that “No company in the world would get everything right.” Cooper added: “I don’t think anyone is doing anything intentionally wrong.”

White also said that he had alternative ideas to raise funds for the Societies Federation other than the current £1 charge. This included raising the cost of membership to the societies federation (which is currently £10 per year at the standard rate for undergraduates.) White said that an increase in the federation price was proposed to be dependent on the number of societies that an individual student joined.

He gave the example of a student who had joined three societies being charged an extra £3, £1 per every society that they joined. However, this is only a possibility which may or may not be voted on at the next societies convention. The Real Ale Society declined to comment.