NAS plans to abandon Council in favour of online forum

I know several members of the former Council and they expressed concerns about these changes.

They told me that other Councillors had told them of their fears but nobody dared to stand up and fight.

Trustees also said in private that this was going to happen no matter what and they had done things to make sure that it looked democratic but was not at all.

Other Councillors pointed out how anyone who stood up to them was isolated then encouraged to stand down or removed from the Council for daring to speak out in public.

The biggest issue raised was one of Accountability, since the inception of the NAS the Council has always been able to block planned bad decisions that Trustees were going to make. 

The new Forum is just a talking shop and it will become more and more useless as time goes on.

Previously, a Councillor had to be known my members, they had to be nominated by members (usually in their locale), then there was an Election and who was appointed was decided by how many people stood in that area.

It was then the Council (who were generally people with a LOT of experience as NAS Volunteers, Branch Officers, Parents or those on the Spectrum themselves) who voted in the Trustees.

This is no longer the case and this is a BAD thing.

Previously you had to have served on the Council of the NAS to be elible to be appointed as a Trustee, this was important because without such service you really do not have the experience required. 

Now Trustees can be appointed by the whole membership, at first glance this may seem more democratic but in reality it means the average member does not know the person who they are electing.  Also, one of the reasons given for changing the system was poor voting, so how does it make sense to subject such an important thing (who runs the NAS) to a system of poor voting.  Surely it would have been better to make members more informed and get them to take a more active role.

The other impact of this is that anybody newly appointed does not know the Trustees and is effectively bullied into going along with things. As it is, former Trustees who are on the spectrum have complained about feeling forced off or sidelined.

The Councillors I spoke to said that other Council members felt this was the beginning of the Board wanting to push through changes that the previous Council would not have allowed.

You have quite rightly pointed out how they have staged the change by using very simplistic statements in documents with referrals to several other documents which themselves are full of intellible text.

They also did everything they could to reduce democracy, they held the meeting up North to make it difficult for people to get to and they made the suggestion that this was a positive thing saying that Council wanted it.

I asked the Councillor about that and she said that Council had debated the role of a Councillor for several years, but that was more because some play a greater role than others, not all feel able to commit as much time as others.  Some also have way more experience, for example a Branch Officer will have experience of dealing with their local County Council, Social Services, School and NHS services on behalf of other parents.  Just because they had not defined every aspect of the role did not mean they wanted to disband Council.

As the Forum is just a talking shop the Board can now do almost whatever they want and it is expected they will close down services.

Thanks, Explorer, that was very helpful, and thanks Longman for your usual, incisive insights.

We have many issues with the way that the NAS goes about things. I see posts such as this all the time, and the common theme appears to be that the process is largely uninformed by ourselves.

We seem to feel a strong urge to help inform the evolution of the NAS, but I see nothing in these proposed changes that allows for that. I certainly don't feel invited or encouraged to be more involved in governance issues. In my case, this is disappointing as my professional career is highly relevant to exactly these situations, from the other side, as it were, in particular having to teach new groups of people the principals of good governance.

The AGM is being held in York. It strikes me that this is a policy of exclusion - getting there and staying there are expensive and beyond a great number of people in so many ways. I find this slightly patronising.

As is rightly pointed out, it's because we are not overtly invited, encouraged or enabled to be part of the essential governance of the organisation. These proposals address none of these issues. I think their current approach is trying, indeed will go some way towards, but ill-informed, I feel.

Evolution is change. An unchanging organisation is, by definition, doomed to sterility. These proposals indicate a willingness to change, but the debate should be ongoing, not subject to some waffle and an instant vote at an AGM that excludes most people. However, there is a structure that MUST exist, with clearly defined roles, to comply with Charity Commission requirements, and they must be seen to be done.

I am convinced that there are enough suitably qualified and experienced AS people to do most of this for ourselves. Is that part of the next evolution?

I'm dumbfounded reading the "what does this mean" link. There are articles that we are to vote for that will change the council, but what are these articles?

For people to vote, the articles or other new matter has to be set out properly and explained - I don't see anything like it.

I can read between the lines though - 3.7% turnout, not all places filled.

Well think about it - NAS council - I do get ballot papers sent to me. I don't vote (mea culpa). It is clearly London-centric. The little candidate biographies mean nothing to me - I doubt if there are even 3.7% in a position to know enough about the candidates. And it is very clearly parent-centric. I don't get any feeling there's a balanced representation of people on the spectrum.

But someone needs to sit down and rethink, and a whole lot better explain, what NAS is trying to do. Otherwise after the vote you wont be any better off with a national forum no-one comprehends.

And it may be unconstitutional.

Granted I owe it to take more interest. I'd just assumed it gt along somehow....evidently not so.

To Classic Codger, You can find the information on the NAS website here: Voting on new Articles - NAS

There is a letter from the Chair, which I mentioned, Letter from the Chair and Senior Councillor about the new Articles

My response was to the document called Read "New NAS Articles: What Does This Mean?"  

I hope this helps.

I think the text is quite deliberately difficult to follow. The NAS have people who are expert in writing plain English, so when they make things complicted, it's for a reason. In this case, they are trying to push though a change and the compex language means more people will just follow the advice they give in bold, to accept their proposals.  I posted my objections to it, in the hope that other autistic adults would see how it is not in our best interest to accept the proposals without question.

I'm confused. I just checked again, in case I wasn't paying attention, but I've had no such e-mail. I haven't had anything in the post either. I'm a member, and I've had nothing.

Therefore, not ALL members of NAS have been sent this or invited to comment/vote.

Is there any informnation that tells you how they selected the group that they've contacted? Will voting change anything?

Thanks for clarifying what that email (I got mine Thursday 29th October) was about. I haven't yet clicked the link - so clearly I need to.

Reading the email, the author should take a course in effective writing. I've waded through it again and still cannot pick out just how crucial this actually is.....BECAUSE - what we actually need to know is in the obscure link.

Thanks