Dubious accounting at the International Students’ Association (ISA) has resulted in the university removing its funding.
Vision has discovered that the university was not prepared to continue financing the ISA as it was not satisfied with how the association was running its financial accounts. It is understood that one of their two accounts, receiving approximately £30,000 a year from the University, was not adequately accounting for its expenditure.
Such a lack of accountability mean that the ISA could have easily signed blank cheques or simply withdrawn funds without anybody noticing.
Vision put these findings to the ISA’s newly elected President, Aaron Ong, he failed to deny them. At the time of press, Ong refused to speak to Vision or answer any questions regarding the matter.
Earlier this year David Duncan, the University’s registrar and secretary, had to call in the ISA’s then-president, Daria Pawlowska, to find out what the ISA was, how it was being run and who was responsible for its various undertakings. It was after this dialogue that the university made its decision over the ISA.
Speaking to Vision, Pawlowska denied that there was any misappropriating of finances but accepted that two accounts led to “confusion” on the University’s part. Pawlowska also supports the idea of going under YUSU, adding, “we will have more staff support in the future which I’m really looking forward to.” Ong is reportedly not satisfied with this outcome and wants to see the ISA continue as it currently does.
It is likely the university and the union will try to avoid any legal implications by presenting the changes as a restructuring. At last week’s UGM, Ben Humphrys, YUSU Welfare Officer, put forward a motion to incorporate the ISA within the students’ union so that there would still be representation for international students. Although the motion had support, because not enough votes were cast, the proposal did not meet quoracy.
YUSU are likely to push through the agenda in Week 4 of the autumn term, and will take responsibility of the ISA’s commitments until then.
Humphrys commented: “It’s really exciting that we’re going to be working much more closely with the ISA next year and that we’ll be able to give them the staff and sabb support they deserve.”
If and when it passes, the President of the ISA would become a YUSU part-time officer. The ISA would then be demoted, joining the eighteen other sub-committees in the union.
The university’s press officer, David Garner, said of the matter: “We have had discussions with the ISA President and YUSU about the relationship between the ISA, YUSU and the GSA. Those discussions are ongoing with the incoming President following the recent ISA elections. The university will continue to support the International Students’ Association and is committed to working with it to enhance the experience of international students at York.”
The ISA is no stranger to controversy. During their elections last year, every candidate running for president and treasurer were disqualified and by-elections had to be held after the summer break.
can any one inform me as to how ISA are meant to spend £30,000 a year? with such insane levels of cash being thrown at them, no wonder there’s a bit of fiddling going on!
The £30,000 is probably just the Uni trying to assuage some of its guilt at charging International students such exorbitant tuition fees.
First and foremost,I absolutely disagree with the quote that the ISA’ easily signed blank cheques or simply withdrawn funds without anybody noticing.’
There were three signatories of the account held by the ISA, the President,Treasurer and the manager of the GSA.At no time can the the ISA write blank cheques as the GSA Manager was fully accountable as were the signatories.
Secondly, Daniel Goddard have failed to presented any evidence but mere hypothesis.
Thirdly,I did not even speak to Goddard about this matter let alone fail to deny anything.
Fourthly,the restructuring was to do with legal liability rather than any murky backroom dealings.
Lastly,I urge readers to be cautious when reading anything as certain ‘journalists’ are prone to sensationalism and not presenting the facts in a unbiased manner and fail to get their facts right.
Aaron Ong(not Oong)
ISA President
Very sloppy ‘journalism’, unimpressed
“During their elections last year, every candidate running for president and treasurer were disqualified and by-elections had to be held after the summer break.”
Just to get that straight, not every candidate was disqualified. In fact, not a single candidate was disqualified. What actually happened is that the committee decided to hold by-elections for these positions as it was discovered that some individual candidates broke certain campaigning rules. I would please ask you to correct that.
@George
This information came straight from Daria. My understanding is that every single candidate broke the rules. If I misinterpreted what she said then I apologise.
The ISA has been doing its accounts on the back of a fag packet for ages. It is the employment of a new GSA manager that has stopped this.
@Daniel:
I can tell you that there was clearly some misinterpretation there. Not a single person was disqualified.
There were complaints about some individual candidates by some students, but the committee thought that individual disqualifications would be too extreme, so it was decided that there should be by-elections.
http://www.theyorker.co.uk/news/uninews/3351/
@Chris:
And you base that on absolutely nothing?
Not at all, I base that on my involvement with the GSA for quite some time.
Chris (?) is absolutely correct.
The GSA went through an organisational review 18 months ago, the biggest outcomes of which were an overhaul of its financial systems, and the appointment of a new General Manager.
Because of these two reasons (coupled with appropriate pressure from YUSU) the ISA’s poor financial management has finally come out to the public. This is a good thing for international students.
Having said that, I would bet money on it being a case of poor records and planning rather than anything untoward.