Co-operatives UK chief fires warning over public service delivery

Plans for a much greater role for co-operatives in the delivery of public services require much more development if they are to work, the Secretary-General of umbrella organisation Co-operatives UK has said.

Ed Mayo told the Financial Times: “Co-operatives are businesses. It is not a charity model. It is a way to do things better and more fairly and to be innovative. It is not necessarily cheaper.”

Commenting on the growth in interest in co-operatives, he added: “It has been a sector and a movement that has just talked to itself. Now people are looking at the loss of trust in traditional banks and plcs and realising there is an alternative.”

Mayo’s warning comes just days after the chair of the Charity Commission, Dame Suzi Leather, questioned the ability of the voluntary and charity sector to fill all the gaps left by cuts to public services.

The Queen’s Speech last month promised an expanded role for the third sector and co-operatives but this will require legislation. The project is being co-ordinated by Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude.

Efforts will include opening up public services markets to allow social enterprise, charities and co-operatives to bid to run public services and an initiative to identify and remove barriers to involvement. Public sector workers will be given a new right to form employee-owned co-operatives and bid to take over the services they deliver.

The first measures to implement this policy are expected to be in place by the autumn.

Meanwhile, Labour-controlled Lambeth Council unveiled plans to be come the UK’s first “co-operative council” by 2014. The authority is considering offering taxpayers a discount on their council tax if they get involved in running local services.

Co-operatives UK represents 4,280 co-ops in the UK.