Cabinet Office unveils 12 pathfinder mutuals ahead of public sector spin-outs

A project to integrate community health and adult social services in Swindon into a co-operative is among the first wave of 12 pathfinder mutuals to get the go-ahead, the Cabinet Office has announced.

Other schemes to be selected include:

• A London-based community interest company set up by staff from the Department of Health, a local authority, a primary care trust and the NHS, and designed to reduce multiple disadvantage
• The children’s services department at the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham exploring new models of delivery with staff, possible commercial partners and neighbouring local authorities
• The creation of a social enterprise for delivery of housing support services to vulnerable people in Mansfield, bringing together a range of public sector workers
• The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea working with employees to examine the potential for different models of employee-led youth support services
• Westminster City Council working with employees in its children’s services department and neighbouring authorities to move towards creating an arm’s length management organisation, and
• The Lambeth Resource Centre exploring options for co-producing services with employees, service users and third sector organisations to provide rehabilitation support for people with physical and sensory impairment.

The pathfinders are intended to help the government establish the type of support and structures that employee-led mutuals in the public sector will need on an ongoing basis.

The Cabinet Office said the pathfinders were exploring a variety of legal forms and methods of employee leadership. “The focus of this project is on embedding the principles of co-operation, rather than the particular legal form used to achieve this, which will be decided by each pathfinder,” it said.

The projects will also receive free assistance from “mentors” at John Lewis, PWC, KPMG, Tribal, Local Partnerships and other organisations.

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude said the announcement of the pathfinders was the first step in creating “a genuinely ground-up movement where staff, who are the real experts, can come together to take over and deliver better services”.

He added: “The potential for public sector staff to spin out is enormously exciting. The new models will show us how we best support mutuals, tackling problems when they first arise, not expensively managing them over many years.”

The minister claimed that the government’s Spending Challenge had unleashed “a torrent of pent up ideas and comments from public sector workers frustrated by the difficulty of implementing their suggestions”.

“If only a fraction of these 63,000 people are latent entrepreneurs, who itch to put their ideas into action, then our ambitions for public sector mutuals will be amply met,” he suggested.

Further reading: A model mutual