Staff-Student Consultative Committees (SSCC): Arrangements for 2021-22

UCL is fully committed to working in partnership with its students to place students at the heart of decision making and help to improve their experience while studying here. Staff Student Consultative Committees (SSCC) play a key role in enabling this and providing forums for student representatives and staff to work together.

SSCC Chairs and Secretaries are asked to note the following:  

• The SSCC terms of reference, were reviewed and enhanced for the last session with the Students’ Union (SU). They appear to be working well to ensure that there is good alignment between SSCC policy and other key provision such as the Annual Student Experience Review (ASER). Please refer and follow these terms of reference as necessary.  
• The Student Representatives’ areas of concerns continue to be the first discussion point on the SSCC agenda. This ensures that student concerns are prioritised in the agenda and prevent meetings running out of time to discuss student issues. 
• SSCCs may be held online, which should help provide flexibility for arranging meetings and act as fail safe should circumstance with the pandemic change. This may also help more diverse or disparate groups of students to meet when holding physical meetings is difficult. The SU’s Guide on Running SSCCs Remotely 2021-22 provides helpful advice.  
• SSCC agenda and minute templates should also help committees in their operations and ensure they meet the SSCC policy. 

Further to the above, SSCC Chairs and Secretaries are also asked to note the following:  

• The SU manages Student Academic Representation in partnership with UCL. Training and support are provided to all students acting in a representative role. All students appointed as representatives should have been elected and returned to the Union by Friday 15 October 2021. Resources for Staff on student representation have been provided by the SU.  
• SSCCs should meet at least three times a year, typically once each term (though PG SSCCs and others may choose to meet outside of term-time if necessary, or where students request this). 
• SSCC minutes should be produced within two weeks of meetings and forwarded to members and students (see below), as well as to the SU and UCL professional services at sscc@ucl.ac.uk . They should be approved by the SSCC Co-Chairs, but do not need to be confirmed by the subsequent meeting before distribution.  
• SSCC minutes should be distributed within the department to ensure student awareness of the hard work that student academic representatives and staff undertake together to enhance their experience. It is advisable to post the minutes online using either Moodle, Teams or the Departmental website. You may also wish to request that students place them on the noticeboards for Virtual Common Rooms (VCR). Minutes should also be reported to the Departmental Teaching Committee (DTC), to ensure further consideration of relevant matters.   
• SSCC minutes are also used for a number of purposes, including tracking student issues across UCL which are reported to key committees such as Academic Committee. 
• Any outstanding SSCC minutes from 2020-21 should be submitted to: sscc@ucl.ac.uk by 29 October 2021.
• SSCC Secretaries have been added to the SSCC Staff Community MS Teams page to help support the committees. The academic Chairs are welcome to join too for the latest news on SSCCs and student representation. 

Please also get in touch via sscc@ucl.ac.uk if you need any further support with running your SSCC.  

Thank you in advance for your cooperation and for all of your hard work on the SSCCs. 

Mr Ayman Benmati, Education Officer, Students’ Union UCL 

Dr Helen Matthews, Director of Academic Services