CUSU Council has passed a new motion in favour of changing its funding model away from the current affiliation mode, towards one where all colleges pay an annual levy towards CUSU and the Graduate Union (GU).

Previously, colleges paid an annual fee based on whether their JCR and MCR were affiliated to CUSU or the GU. Under the new proposal, the annual levy would be paid by all colleges towards CUSU, who would then pass on the sum as financial support towards the cost of the Students’ Union Advice Service (SUAS) and its three welfare and rights officers.

This means that even those colleges with JCR or MCRs that are disaffiliated from CUSU or the GU, such as Corpus Christi and Gonville & Caius, will still be paying towards the unions.

A motion in support of changing the funding model was first raised in the second CUSU Council of Michaelmas 2016. The motion proposed a move away from the affiliation fee model, where JCRs and MCRs only paid affiliation fees if they are a member of CUSU, towards one where colleges pay individual fees to CUSU directly on a per capita basis. It passed Council, but needed approval from the central Bursars’ Levy Committee, which it has still not received.

Eyre also said that “a straightforward levy is not popular among the colleges”, but that the Bursars’ Committee had approved a new proposal when it was suggested that the forecast levy for 2018-19, which virtually the same as the forecast cost for SUAS and its welfare officers, been used directly for welfare funding.

The initial levy would be set at the same level as the forecasted affiliation fees for 2018-19, meaning that there would be no net difference in the level of collegiate funding for CUSU and the GU, though CUSU president Daisy Eyre said that “there was scope to ask for an increase” in the future.

Disaffiliated colleges are not given voting rights at CUSU council. However, given that individual students are still able to access CUSU services irrespective of whether their JCR or MCR is a member of CUSU, it was argued that affiliated colleges were in effect subsidising the membership of disaffiliated colleges.

Under the proposal presented this evening, Eyre argued that colleges were therefore effectively disincentivised from being affiliated to CUSU. It was also claimed that the current system means that choosing whether to remain affiliated to CUSU is a financial decision rather than a political one.

It was stressed that the changes to the funding model should have no impact on the cost to JCRs and MCRs.

President of Emmanuel College Students’ Union, Connor MacDonald, queried whether the motion could face real scrutiny, given that practically there was very little option not to pass it.