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The exclusion of staff and student governors from key committees is not a peculiarity of new universities. The University of London's council includes student representatives, but not trade unions or staff.

Our federal structure makes total staff representation problematic. Since the Senate House has no formal governing body, there could be a case for staff representation on council, but this does not happen. Neither do staff or trade unions sit on the audit, finance, governance, investments, personnel or public interest disclosure committees.

I believe that, with the exception of safety committees, a similar situation exists in other old universities. The university has a staff joint consultative committee - not a perfect solution, but better than nothing.

Mark Harris President, local AUT University of London

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