Tasks and powers of the Faculty Councils

The tasks and powers of the Faculty Council are very similar to those of the University Council. However,  the subjects are often different, because at faculty level there are other issues than at a central level.

Except the faculty LUMC, the faculties of Leiden University have a representative body, whose task it is to critically follow the Faculty Board, provide it with advice and sometimes decide with the Faculty Board on important topics. This body is the Faculty Council (FR). LUMC has a student council and a works council.

Advisory Law
The Faculty Council has the right of its own accord to give advice to the Faculty Board on all faculty matters that seem desirable; the board is obliged to respond to this. This is a good way to bring problems "on the work floor" or among large groups of students to the attention of the board.

Rights
The Faculty Council is informed of the current policy.
In addition, the board must inform the council every year about the financial, organizational and educational policy. In practice this will happen more than once a year; on average, the Faculty Council and Faculty Board meet once a month. Subjects such as the budget, human resources, the collaboration of the faculty with external partners, the quality assurance, the long-term plan of the faculty and planned reorganizations. The establishment or amendment of the faculty regulations and of education and examination regulations will therefore regularly return.

Right of consent
In some of these subjects, the council even has the right of consent. This means that the Council first has to agree with the Board's proposal before this proposal can be implemented. There are also subjects where only the staff section of the council has right of consent and the student section has advisory right. For instance, measures that relate to the legal status of employees (such as a planned reorganization). Finally, the Faculty Council has the task of promoting openness, publicity and mutual consultation and to guard against discrimination.

Selected members
The number of members of a Faculty Council depends on the size of the faculty. The Board (except for LUMC) always consists of half-staff and half students. The student section is chosen for a year, the staff section for two years.

List system
At the faculties Humanities (student section), Law, Social Sciences and Mathematics and Natural Sciences Faculty Council members are chosen according to the list system, where you can vote on one candidate of a list (party), similar to elections for the House of Representatives or the Municipality Council.

Candidate system
At the faculties of Archeology, Humanities (staff section), Governance and Global Affairs and the Student Council of the LUMC, the candidate system is used, whereby the candidates stand in their own name. The voter casts a vote for one candidate, but can also indicate a preference order for other candidates. This vote can be transferred in whole or in part to other candidates according to the specified order of preference when calculating the result. It is possible that in faculties with a candidate system, candidates are affiliated to a party; then the party is stated behind their name.