Scrutiny Panel Comment

Scrutiny Panel is a team of students that are recruited specifically to scrutinise and hold the elected Guild Officers to account on behalf of students at the University of Birmingham. Scrutiny Panel’s role is to review the actions, performance and conduct of the Guild Officer Group to ensure that they are effectively representing and working for students.

Through the Bylaws, Scrutiny Panel (SP) has several actions available to it to deliver its duties. These are to ask questions, state a point of clarification, make a comment or request further information or evidence. SP may also trigger a Vote of No Confidence in an Officer should it not be satisfied with their performance, or they may commend the performance of an officer if the reverse is agreed.

Scrutiny Panel have agreed to issue the following comment in relation to Antonia Listrat, Guild President 2025/26.

“Over the past year, Scrutiny Panel has diligently aimed to fairly and impartially scrutinise the performance and outputs of the Full and Part-time Officers at the Guild of Students. As such, the Panel sought to employ and demonstrate patience, understanding and empathy to Officers who may experience disruption to their work, or suffer barriers to their workload. In many cases, this has resulted in several Officers submitting late reports but providing adequate reasoning in the following panel.

To date, the President has failed to submit a scrutiny panel report on time. As of Semester Three, Scrutiny Panel received no report from the President. An extension was issued, but that date passed without a report being submitted. The President has not attended the arranged Panel meeting for her last Semester in office, nor has she made any reasonable or meaningful attempt to provide evidence of her progress towards her manifesto. Numerous opportunities to rearrange the panel meeting were made, but these attempts received no meaningful reply. As such, the Panel has not been able to fulfil its role of scrutinising all Officers of the Guild. Subsequently, the Panel believes that the President has disregarded her duty as a Guild Officer to face scrutiny from the students. In doing so, the President has failed to comply with the Guild’s Democratic structure and cannot adequately be held to account by the Panel. Furthermore, the President’s disengagement from scrutiny goes against the grain of her mandate; namely her pledge to “Improve Guild transparency and student engagement” and “Ensure the interests of all students are presented, from the bottom to the top”.

The Office of President is earned, not given. As Guild President, there is the expectation to oversee and promote the interests of approximately 42,000 students. Elected by these students, Guild Officers are expected to rigorously engage with the role and uphold the democratic integrity of the Guild. The President’s lack of engagement with Scrutiny Panel has set a poor precedent for other Officers, whom she should be seen as a role model to. Her current disengagement with the democratic system is not reflective of the demands of her role.

As a Panel, there is an appreciation of the impact of illness and extenuating circumstances may have on the temporary absence of a report. More careful planning, with respect to the Scrutiny Panels and closer working relationships with other officers, could have helped mitigate these impacts and provided broader context for the Panel and the students to reflect upon the outcomes of the President’s work. Unfortunately, without the report, the Panel is unable to effectively assess the work of the President, nor hold her accountable to her activities.”

Below is the Scrutiny Panel record that is presented to the Board of Trustees;