Tuesday 12-05-2026 - 11:49

This toolkit is for students’ unions that are still part of their institution and want to take their first steps towards independent self-governance.

It provides documents to build trust and help staff, student leaders and senior leaders understand what self-governance involves and how to achieve it. We use the phrase ‘integrated students’ union’ to describe SUs that are not separate legal entities to their institution.

We know that a copy/paste of charitable constitutions doesn't always work, and leaves you with a set of clunky documents that don't always make sense in the day-to-day running of your activity. So we've created a suite of guidance and model documents to help you on your way - model constitutions, rules and terms of reference for an advisory board that are less complex than their legal equivalents, but are perfect to get you started. 

We've also included guidance on how governance & advisory boards can work if your SU is still a part of your college or university - what you can and can't do, and good practice along the way. 

Within this toolkit are the following resources:

• Integrated Students’ Union Set Up Guide
• Governance 101 primer (intro to what an integrated Students’ Union is and how governance works)
• Advisory Board Starter Pack (how to set up and run an Advisory Board to oversee Students’ Union activities)
• Model Advisory Board Terms of Reference (status, role and scope of the Advisory Board)
• Model Constitution (purpose and democratic structure)
• Model Rules (how things work in practice)