Last week’s Varsity story about an unexpected black hole in CUSU’s finances in the 2014-15 executive year, which required the organisation to seek a bailout from the university to make up for lost income, caused such a stir with the students’ union that it released an official response outlining its position, accusing us of “affront[ing its] structural foundations”.

This week, we report on the sudden closure of the bindery at the University Library and the consequent loss of 18 jobs. Soon-to-be former bindery employees allege they were not consulted about the closure of the department, despite internal documents dating from May obtained by this newspaper strongly suggesting that the closure had been long planned in advance. Discussions, it seems, fell under the purview of “reserved matters” and hence were not logged in publicly available minutes, leaving staff members to find out about the long-planned closure on Wednesday and red-faced university officials admitting that staff consultations are still ongoing, despite the closure plan already having been approved.

Both of these stories have one significant feature in common: they have involved bringing compromising information, embarrassing to an institutional organisation, to light. 

This is not to suggest for a moment that a funding gap is morally equivalent to laying off 18 members of staff, allegedly without prior consultation, a decision which also brings to an end a long tradition of in-house book binding and repair in the University Library. The latter involves livelihoods, families and long periods of employment and craft, when the former involves a deficit that was easily plugged by university resources, albeit with “emergency funding”.

But shining a light on CUSU’s financial difficulties and the university’s concerns that it might not have confidence in future CUSU budgets is important, not only for illustrating the scale of the sums involved that the students’ union spends on behalf of undergraduates, but also for shining a light on how the organisation is funded. It is perfectly coherent to point out a funding crisis and also to believe that a students’ union should not have to finance itself using dubiously named publications like the Guide to Excellence. What if the university provided more money upfront, so the union didn’t have to go cap in hand in a crisis?

No serious newspaper can engage in malicious campaigns against charitable organisations who have at their heart the desire to help. But reporting is not a vendetta, and it is vital that students be aware of embarrassing facts about some of the university’s most important institutions.