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Echo article on the continuing impact that co-operatives and other forms of mutuals have in our daily lives
At the weekend, I went shopping at a store owned by its employees (John Lewis at West Quay) and one owned by its customers or members (the Co-op in Park Gate). My mortgage is with a business and that I and each of its customers own (the Nationwide Building Society). Why am I sharing this with you? It is to illustrate the continuing impact that co-operatives and other forms of mutuals have in our daily lives. Many of these institutions have their roots in the 19th century, when people came together for a common purpose: to set up businesses that would meet their needs more closely than the existing businesses. It was a form of self-help. Building societies were a means for local people to save and help people buy houses. Co-ops provided value for money and enabled their customers to enjoy better prices and share in the profits.
Increasingly, co-operatives and mutuals are playing a role in the provision of public services. Foundation trusts in the health service use a mutual model for their governance. Schools are being set up as co-operatives – a model that exists in Spain. Mutuals or co-operatives are used to get the benefits of the public and private sectors. Primary care trusts seeking to separate the provision of services from their core role of deciding what sort of services people in there area need are looking to co-operatives to take over these services. This has already happened in Surrey. Co-operatives and mutuals maintain the public service ethos because they are not required to meet the needs of external shareholders. But at the same time, they have the flexibility of being free from day to day control by government.
I think that there should be more opportunities for co-operatives delivering public services. That’s why I am keen to see people working in the public sector being given the right to form employee-owned co-operatives. This right should apply throughout the vast majority of the public sector – including JobCentre Plus offices, community nursing teams and primary schools.
These employee-owned co-operatives would continue to be funded by the Government so long as they meet national standards, but will be freed from centralised bureaucracy and political micromanagement. They will be voluntary sector, not-for-profit organisations; any financial surpluses would be reinvested into the service and the staff who work there, rather than distributed to external shareholders.
As someone who trusts people to do the right thing for their families and their local communities, I think employee-owned co-operatives would free up the talents and ingenuity of people to look for new and better ways to provide services.
People might think it’s odd for a Conservative MP to champion co-operatives, which have long been seen as a left-wing idea. But, if like me, you want to see more flexibility in public services, greater freedom and autonomy given to people running them and a new model to get better value, then it makes sense to go down this route.