Tag Archives: mutuals

First major Government mutualisation announced

Posted on 12/04/2011 | Leave a comment

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, has today announced plans for the mutualisation of the 400-strong My Civil Service Pension , which administers the delivery of Civil Service Pension schemes.

This will be the first major mutualisation of a central government service. Mutuals, as they are known, give employees a financial stake in a business whose ownership is shared between the public and private sectors.

The Cabinet Office is also considering the potential for offering a stake to 1.5 million pension scheme members. 

Maude said:  “Too often there’s been a binary choice between the Government providing a service itself, or outsourcing it to the private sector. These choices have historically been driven by a belief that services have to be controlled centrally – with a one size fits all approach that has left little room for innovation.

“We are looking for more innovative ways to structure services. We know that employees who have a stake in their business, or take ownership of it completely, have more power and motivation to improve the service they run. They can also benefit from partnerships with private or voluntary sector organisations which can bring in capital and expertise.

“For the private sector, which can no longer expect the generous margins of the past, tapping the talent of frontline staff to improve efficiency will be a priority. The state too can keep a stake so that taxpayers benefit from the rising value of an improved service.

“I’m impressed with entrepreneurial zeal of Phil Bartlett and his team at My Civil Service Pension. They are pioneering the mutual joint venture model and the Government is committed to ensuring they have they right support to succeed.”

Phil Bartlett, CEO My Civil Service Pension, said: ” By taking the opportunity to mutualise we can better acknowledge our people and their expertise – and access valuable additional resources and expertise in the private sector.

“This new and innovative structure will give us the agility to exploit opportunities in the changing pension landscape and grow our business, and the taxpayer will benefit from the increased value of an improved and more efficient service.”

Mutualisation is being supported by dedicated resource within the Cabinet Office. Earlier this month Maude announced that the entrepreneur and business leader, Stephen Kelly, has been appointed as the Crown Representative to support the creation of mutuals from existing service teams within central government departments.

He also announced the establishment of an Enterprise Incubator to help civil servants create successful enterprises from within central government, including employee and management teams who wish to form mutual companies under the Right to Provide previously announced by the Cabinet Office.

The Government is developing mutual models through the Mutual Pathfinder programme which is supporting 21 existing and potential mutuals with mentoring and advice from experts in employee ownership.

Every department will put in place ‘rights to provide’ giving staff new rights and support to form mutuals.

The Cabinet Office has appointed Professor Julian Le Grand to head the Mutuals Taskforce which will support staff interested in mutualising their service.

Links:

Government signs over civil service pensions to private sector mutual.

 FSA Mutuals public register.

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New Local Government Network to hold mutuals conference

Posted on 08/04/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

With the appointment of Stephen Kelly, the former head of Micro Focus, to be the Crown Commercial Representative to head up the creation of the mutuals from existing teams within central government departments, it seems mutualisation momentum is growing.

The latest event to be organised is one by the New Local Government Network, which plans to hold a conference on 14th June in London, where one of the speakers will be Professor Julian Le Grand, leader of the Mutuals Taskforce.

You can find details of the conference here

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Report says Maude to unveil incubator fund for mutuals

Posted on 04/04/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

According to a report in the Independent yesterday, the Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, will today unveil new services, including an incubator fund, to help thousands of public-sector workers take over government services via mutuals.

Maude has reportedly appointed Stephen Kelly, the former head of Micro Focus, to be the Crown Commercial Representative to head up the creation of the mutuals from existing teams within central government departments. Kelly, who has  advised government on IT projects, will lead the work to ensure the  mutuals are set up to attract the right commercial partners – and to  acquire appropriate funding so they can become successful stand-alone businesses delivering public services.

The Cabinet Office is also set to establish an enterprise incubator to help civil servants create successful enterprises from within government, allowing employee and management teams to form mutual companies under the Right to Provide, which has already been announced. The teams will be able to access expertise and finance from a private-sector partner in a joint venture.

The Independent also reported that Maude is setting up a mutuals programme team to work with government departments to support the new mutuals and to ensure that public services continue.

Potentially, thousands of public-sector employees will be given a significant stake in these organisations, plus the chance to shape the way services are delivered, and also how they are run and how to reward themselves.

Maude’s announcement, if it is made today, will keep up the momentum on mutualisation. With no significant announcement in the Budget, and reports that the planned Public Services White Paper had been put back to May, there were some indications that mutualisation progress had slowed down or stalled.

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Will George Osborne help mutuals in today’s Budget?

Posted on 23/03/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

There’s an interesting piece on the ResPublica blog today, suggesting that today’s Budget will offer an opportunity to judge the Government’s understanding of, and appetite for, bridging the gap between ambition and action, rhetoric and reality, policy and practice when it comes to mutuals.

The piece, by Dan Gregory,  ‘Can the Budget help the public sector do mutuals?’ suggests we should look out for any promising words in George Osborne’s speech around the public stake in the banks, the future of the remaining arms-length bodies, the future of some of our valued national assets, and keep an eye on public service reforms.

Gregory suggests that “a handful of our local public servants and administrators are interested (in mutuals). So what does this mutual ambition mean in practice for these asset managers, budget-holders and HR managers? Which button do you press to get yourself a mutual? The unspoken truth here – which is beginning to crystallise as the test of this government’s ambitions for mutual solutions – is that the standard levers available to those responsible for delivery probably won’t lead to the creation of mutuals. Keeping services or assets in house certainly won’t and going out to the market, well, unsurprisingly, means the market will decide. So how do you ‘do’ the mutual option? Where’s the lever?”

Gregory says, “We should welcome any practical steps that will truly enable the HR professionals, asset managers and budget-holders to look beyond the options they currently have at their disposal and set the warm words alight.”

Let’s see what Osborne comes up with later today.

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Mutuals do things differently, unshackled by rules – Francis Maude

Posted on 17/03/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has asked MPs to visit public sector sites that have created co-operatives to see how they have changed their ways of working.

He told a committee of MPs:

“I can point you to some fantastic ones where people are just thinking in sometimes tiny ways, ways of doing things differently, that deliver a better service for less money because they have thought about it.

“And they are not subject to some hierarchy and some set of rules that prevents them doing it. They just do it.”

Ian Watmore, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, told the same hearing of the Public Administration Select Committee, that he and his colleagues will be publishing a White Paper on proposed reforms. 

“I believe mutualisation will be a big part of that and it will enable the Government to deliver on the reforms that it has already set out and it will trigger new reforms as people come up with more innovative ideas at the front line,” said Watmore

Maude said that mutualisation will help to bring about massive decentralisation. “I would recommend, with the interest this Committee has, going and visiting some of these mutuals because the way in which they operate.”

The workers “do things fantastically differently”, added Maude.

The committee’s chairman, Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin told Maude that if he wanted to develop good examples of decentralisation, his intentions should be set out in a plan.   

Said Jenkin“If your plan is to develop supreme examples and really good examples of decentralisation and innovative ways of doing things, well then set that out, because having a plan is an act of leadership and without an act of leadership there won’t be change.” 

Maude replied that setting out a plan and processes could kill mutualisation. He said:  “When we started talking about how we are going to support mutuals, the first response was: ‘Well, we need to have a plan, a programme, and devise rights and systems and processes.’ And when I reflected on that, I thought, ‘I could not think of a better way of killing the idea dead.’

“… The right approach is to find people who want to do this and support them, and as they try and set up their cooperatives and mutuals find out what the blocks are.”

Kelvin Hopkins, a Labour member of the committee, asked Maude whether mutuals would be less accountable to Parliament. Maude’s replies appeared, in part, contradictory.

He said mutuals could turn out to be more accountable. But when Jenkin said later that decentralisation means a “stretching of the elastic bands of accountability in the traditional sense”, Maude replied:

“Yes, totally.”

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Public Services and Mutuals Event in Oxford

Posted on 14/03/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

There’s an interesting event being held in Oxford later this month. It’s a workshop all around the creation and operation of mutuals.

The taster for the event on the Co-Operative Futures site says that with the upcoming ‘right to provide’ in the Localism Bill, the political commitment for the creation of mutuals to run local services and the success of the government pathfinder schemes, mutuals are here to stay.

This workshop offers a chance to hear what a mutual actually is; to hear what is important to making a mutual successful and how it is different from other forms of enterprise.

It’s being held on Wednesday March 23rd, from 11.00-3.00 at the Kings Centre in Oxford.

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Mutuals require clarity and guidance to change the public sector landscape, says Reform

Posted on 09/03/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

There’s an illuminating piece written by Will Tanner from Reform on Conservative Home Comment all about mutualisation and why the development of new vehicles for public service delivery and the proliferation of employee ownership models of organisation promises a step-change in the productivity, efficiency and user satisfaction of public services.

But for mutuals to revolutionise the way in which services are delivered, says Tanner, there needs to be direction and support around the frameworks, culture and expertise needed for their success and clarity over commissioning and competition in the public service landscape.

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