Being chief executive of the National Union of Students is notoriously tricky – and Simon Blake, who’s been in the post since May 2015, has found the past year particularly challenging, despite his experience of leading charities.
Rather than reporting to a board of trustees, Blake answers to the elected president, and supports them and the other elected students in doing their jobs. All the while there are regular battles with politicians over policy, such as scrapping bursaries for student nurses. Rumours of internal power struggles and differences in strategy circulated when Blake’s predecessor Ben Kernighan, the former deputy chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, stepped down after less than 10 months in the role.
Blake admits he’s had a lot to take in. “My first year has just been like ‘woah’ because of everything I have had to learn as well as all the shifts in the wider political context which we’re operating in. For me, it’s been an awesome learning curve.”
The NUS is not just about representing students. It has a number of operations, including a trading arm, NUS services, and volunteering and training services, which became a registered charity five years ago.
Blake has worked in sexual health for most of his career, so he is well-used to working with young people. Prior to taking on NUS role, he headed up Brook, the leading young people’s sexual health charity, and before that he had stints at the National Children’s Bureau and Sex Education Forum. In 2011, he was awarded an OBE for services to the voluntary sector and children and is also deputy chair of Stonewall.
He loves working with young people in a much more direct way. “I think that the student leadership across students’ unions is phenomenal,” he says. “The children’s sector has been trying to do participation work with young people since the United Nations convention on the rights of the child and the students’ unions know how to do all that.”
Blake has visited 40-plus students’ unions across the UK since he started in the role. If he’s tired, he hides it well as he passionately explains that, contrary to various column inches in the national – and student – press, the NUS is not dying a slow and public death.
It is, however, undeniably under a lot of pressure, with increased media scrutiny, accusations of institutional racism and the fall-out from the controversial election of Malia Bouattia, who has been accused of antisemitism among other issues. Sixteen students’ unions have since chosen to hold referendums on whether or not to continue their NUS membership. Four – Loughborough, Newcastle, Lincoln and Hull – have voted to leave, which will undoubtedly make a dent in the organisation’s income.
Blake is adamant though that these deflections are just a drop in the ocean. He says: “If you read the media, you would assume that out of 560 unions, all of them were having referendums and leaving when, in actual fact, you’re talking about a tiny tiny number. Students’ unions always have referendums whether to stay or leave, which is on a cyclical basis, so the expectation is that we will have them. Obviously having 16 at one time is more than you would normally expect.”
Representing seven million students does present a headache for communication, Blake admits, especially when issues get blown out of proportion on social media. For many students, their sole engagement with the NUS is purchasing their NUS extra card but, he says: “They may or may not know very much more about it because our main interaction is directly with students’ unions, not students themselves. But social media can create a lot of [negative] noise.”
When asked about the recent media scrutiny faced by the NUS, Blake hesitates in answering. When he does reply, he chooses his words carefully. He says: “It’s interesting isn’t it that so much of what is reported is misinformation. With the backdrop of much of the media looking for a negative, our real challenge is to keep focusing on the things which we know we’re doing to improve the lives of students and students’ unions in this context.
Referring to the intense media scrutiny many charities have faced in the past year, he says: “The charity sector is taking a hit and again so much of it is misrepresented or more nuanced than that which is reported.”
However, that isn’t to say he isn’t taking the concerns raised by the NUS membership and the media seriously. An independent review by the Runnymede Trust, for example, is in progress to investigate the allegations of institutional racism. The findings will be published by the end of the year. “Clearly the most important bit is that we’re willing to look at it,” Blake says. “The NUS has always been at the forefront of progressive politics but the paradox of that is that we may have things we still need to work on.”
The scrutiny has also become personal. In May, he got the Guido Fawkes treatment when the blogger revealed Blake’s salary and branded him a “fat cat”. It’s an experience that quite a few charity leaders will be uncomfortably familiar with.
Blake claims, with a casual shrug, that it was like water off a duck’s back. “My salary is my salary and I was appointed, not elected. I’m proud to work for the NUS and I’m proud to be chief executive and if people want to put that under scrutiny then so be it.”
