Students have until 8pm tomorrow (Monday, October 14) to vote in a referendum over whether Swansea University Students’ Union should lose two of its full time officers, cutting the team from seven to five. Vote here.

Lat week’s student forum was told that the cuts were being proposed for financial reasons. Union president Zahid Raja told the meeting that cutting the number of sabbatical posts would free up more money which would be used to employ more permanent staff, enabling the remaining officers to spend more time focusing on student-based matters.

The saving from losing two full-time officers would be £41,072.

Fifteen minutes were dedicated to discussing the potential cuts in the student forum on Tuesday, however students were also invited to attend a discussion session later in the week in JC’s to resolve any unanswered questions they may have had.

Several students who attended the forum questioned the timing of the vote, arguing that with freshers’ week having only just finished, many first year students were probably still not aware of the union and the work that it does.

Students’ union president Zahid Raja disagreed however, replying: “I can’t think of a better time to do it than at the beginning of the year.”

He said the timing of the referendum was also due to the fact that decisions were currently being made regarding the new campus due to open in September 2015.

He told the forum that Swansea had an abnormally high amount of officers against students in comparison to other students’ unions, and therefore it was vital that cuts were made.

It would be left for students to decide which of the officer positions should be cut from the union. The National Union of Students will spend November consulting with students on how they want to be represented through a number of ways including, but not limited to, surveys and focus groups.

If voted to go ahead, the cuts will be made from next July when the new set of sabbatical officers take up their posts.

The referendum of all students has been taking place via an online voting portal at http://www.swansea-union.co.uk/referenda/ between the hours of 8 am and 8 pm from Thursday 10th October, Friday 11th October, Saturday 12th October, Sunday 13th October and Monday 14th October 2013.

A minimum of 459 students will have to register their vote for the result to valid, based on a quoracy of 3% of 15,275 students.

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