Tag Archives: mutuals

Unison ready to fight against mutuals and rails against ‘self-interested’ third sector

Posted on 24/01/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

It would be nice to think that the unions might see something positive in mutuals, a new (old) way of doing business, perhaps. Maybe an open mind?

But no. The latest communication from Unison – call to arms might be a better description – is profoundly depressing for anyone who sees the possibilities offered by mutuals and co-operatives. It is dismissively critical of what it calls the ‘self interested’ third sector. I suppose I shouldn’t have been that surprised by the tone.

Here’s a taste of its invective:

“Whilst the Cabinet Office desperately struggles to reinvent the failing ‘big society’ policy the LGA recently reported that less than 3% of councils responding to a survey have had any interest from staff in setting up employee led mutual arrangements and very few intend to encourage or push this route.
 
“Despite these figures which would depress the most committed ‘big society’ proponent The Cabinet Office are intent on flogging a dead horse are now issuing guidance and changes to legislation to take forward coops and mutuals to make it easier to set them up to run public services:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/news/mutuals-get-go-ahead
 
“This is now for the unions a ‘back to CCT’ moment. In the late 80’s and early 90s we made sure anyone who wanted to pick over the bones of public services were able to support the continuance of staff terms and conditions and we fought hard to enforce TUPE.
 

“We fought for continuation of staff pensions and made pensions a key negotiating point. We fought against the cowboy contractors by insisting that they had proper health and safety assessments, method statements, competency to do the work and financial security to run public services without going into bankruptcy.

“This latest missive from the Cabinet Office should remind us as a union to dust down the old CCT advice. It is no different now to then in many ways – if enthusiastic amateurs attempt to run local public services they should be held to account in the same way that we held private companies to account under CCT.

“Public services shouldn’t be put at risk nor public sector workers thrown onto the scrap heap because councils or other employers are seduced by the language of good intent spun by the self-interested third sector intent on privatising public services.”

So, I guess we should probably take that as a ‘No to mutuals’ then.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, employee-onwership, employment, mutualisation, mutuals, public sector, public services, social economy, social enterprise

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Rounding-up coverage of David Cameron’s planned Co-operatives Bill

Posted on 22/01/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement of  a forthcoming ‘Co-operatives Bill’ to consolidate outdated pieces of legislation governing co-operatives and mutuals into a single statute has been heavily commented on in recent days.

Cameron said the Co-operatives Bill would cut red tape and help to build a fairer economy, ensuring that co-operative members can share in the benefits of enterprise. 

Here is a round-up of coverage in the last few days about the planned bill and about co-operatives and mutuals.

Co-operatives UK

The Daily Telegraph

The Guardian

The Economist

Transition Institute

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Posted in Campaign4Change, mutualisation, mutuals, public sector, public services, social economy, social enterprise

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Clegg speech renews Coalition mutuals and employee-ownership focus

Posted on 17/01/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has advocated greater employee-ownership.

In a speech yesterday to the Corporation of London, he described employee share ownership as “a touchstone of liberal economic thought for a century and a half and a hugely under-used tool in unlocking growth.”

As this report explains,  he suggested that employee-owned firms could end the ‘standing feud between capital and labour’.

“We don’t believe our problem is too much capitalism: we think it’s that too few people have capital. We need more individuals to have a real stake in their firms.”

It could be the latest kick-start the mutuals and employee-ownership initiative needs. (And John Lewis’s marketing department must be wallowing again in the free publicity)

Not all coverage of Clegg’s speech has been positive, however, with Nils Pratley in the Guardian calling the employee share-ownership  ideas ‘half-baked’.  Pratley says the speech raised more questions than answers.  But in fairness, I don’t think Clegg’s intention was to lay out a complete White Paper for action. It was merely to continue to put employee ownership on the agenda for discussion.

Text of Nick Clegg’s speech

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Posted in Campaign4Change, employee-onwership, mutualisation, mutuals, reforms, social economy, social enterprise

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Transition Institute’s weekly round-up of mutuals and spin-out stories

Posted on 16/01/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Here is a link to the Transition Institute’s weekly round-up of mutuals and public sector spin-out stories.

NB The link  on the Transition Institute site to the Public Service article on procurement change and SMEs on 13th January doesn’t work. The link below does, however.

Pace of procurement change frustrates innovative SMEs

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change, managing change, mutualisation, mutuals, procurement, public sector, social economy, social enterprise

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A swift round-up of 2012 previews, mutuals and social enterprise stories

Posted on 09/01/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

The Transition Institute has done a good job of rounding up some of the New Year look-ahead pieces around social enterprise, mutuals and what 2012 has in store for local government, health and social care.

You can see the round up here

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Posted in mutualisation, mutuals, social economy, social enterprise

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Happy New Year from Campaign4Change

Posted on 02/01/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

A Happy New Year to all our readers from both Tony Collins and me. Let’s hope that 2012 brings success in the development of IT projects – and satisfactory resolution for those that weren’t quite so successful – as well as continued progress for Pathfinder mutuals.

I’d like to see the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham’s Schools IT mutual successfully get off the ground early this year, and for another  mutual, Central Surrey Health that I spoke with in 2011 to make the continued business progress its efforts deserve. I hope that all growing, developing and prospective mutuals get all the political and economic support they need to thrive.

I came across a few stories at the end of 2011 from other blogs that made for interesting reading, plus a few Campaign4Change favourites. Here’s a selection:

Taking Stock

Lessons from the GoDaddy Customer Revolt

Top Harvard Business Review Blog posts of 2011

Top 10 Green Business stories

The unavoidable truths about GovIT

Government’s new ICT Plan – the good, the bad, and what’s needed

Agile can fix failed GovIT

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, mutualisation, mutuals, NHS, public sector, public services

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Some post-Christmas reading on mutuals

Posted on 29/12/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

It’s a few days after the Christmas closedown and time to browse a few sites and catch up on articles written around Christmas but which possibly got missed in the festive rush.

I liked this piece from Dom Potter, director of the Transition Institute  in the latest issue of Ethos magazine.

He argues that the Public Services (Social Value) Bill currently going through Parliament may have a very real impact on those who work with or deliver public services for years to come.

“The Bill aims to reform the commissioning process undertaken by public sector commissioners to consider how they can maximise the ‘social value’ – the social, economic and environmental wellbeing – of local areas through public procurement,” he says. “The changes in the Bill, should they come into full force, will have a profound impact on the commissioning and procurement of public services in the decades ahead. The focus will shift from the bottom-line price or cost of a service towards the overall value of the outcomes delivered.”

Over the Christmas period, I caught some of the marvellous 1951 film version of Scrooge with the incomparable Alastair Sim in the title role. So with a lack of joy, Christmas spirit and misery in mind, I give you the Shadow Civil Society minister Gareth Thomas, who argues  in this piece that the government’s mutuals project is failing.

Bah, Humbug!

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Posted in Campaign4Change, mutualisation, mutuals, public services, social economy, social enterprise

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Public sector procurement change likely to spur outlook for social enterprises and mutuals

Posted on 20/12/2011 | Leave a comment

There is a good piece by Colin Cram on the Guardian Public Leaders Network which sums up a mood of change in public sector procurement towards social enterprise and the future of mutuals.

Cram argues that  “the public sector procurement spend of £236bn is the biggest lever the government has to generate economic growth. It could be argued that the focus on price or an overly narrow interpretation of cost has damaged UK businesses and UK economic growth. This, more than anything else, might explain the relative success of German industry and business compared to that of the UK.”

He suggests that MP Chris White’s public services social value bill, which has passed its third reading and report stage in the House of Commons,  seeks to strengthen the social enterprise business sector and make the concept of ‘social value’ more relevant and important in the procurement and provision of public services.

Its key elements, says Cram, include:

• A duty on the secretary of state for communities and local government to publish a national social enterprise strategy to encourage engagement in social enterprise.

• Local authorities, when entering into public procurement contracts, to give greater consideration to economic, social or environmental wellbeing.

There is already work in this area being done by Coventry City Council, which is helping social enterprises secure more business by supporting the creation of a consortium, which will be in a much better position to win business, and by the London Borough of Lambeth.

These procurement developments are likely to be  important for the take-off and future well-being of public service mutuals. It will be interesting to see whether further mutuals can take off inspired by the example set by the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham which is set to launch in early 2012.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, mutualisation, mutuals, procurement, public sector, public services

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iESE efficiency mutual set up to help English councils save money

Posted on 14/12/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

An improvement and efficiency local authority-owned  mutual has been set up to help England’s councils save money.

Created from the South East region’s improvement and efficiency partnership, iESE is now setting out to help councils and other local public services that are struggling to cope with the public sector financial squeeze.

Although some services will be free, the bulk of the new company’s income will be generated by fees charged to councils levied from efficiency savings. Surpluses generated will be reinvested back into iESE ‘to further improve the sector’.

Neil Blake, who is Aylesbury Vale District Council’s representative on iESE’s board, said: “Councils can no longer rely on existing ways to meet their tough savings targets. That’s why we were the first council to sign up to iESE Limited’s shared procurement service as a fresh way of helping to deliver our savings. Only by exploring new avenues like those offered by iESE Limited will councils achieve the scale of savings required.”

iESE, which works with local authorities and other public sector organisations in the South East and beyond, believes it has built knowledge and expertise in complex service areas such as Waste and Resource Management; Social Care; Procurement and Construction. It argues that rather than creating unnecessary additional bureaucracy or process, it provides a fresh perspective to challenges to release savings and improve services for citizens.

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Posted in mutualisation, mutuals, procurement, social enterprise

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Joint-venture mutuals again mooted as solution to local authority procurement hurdle

Posted on 14/12/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Stepping Out  managing director Craig Dearden-Philips has again  mooted the possibility of joint-venture mutuals i.e. new ventures which bring together public sector staff with an external partner to set up a new company on a 50/50 basis.

This, he suggests, can run a procurement – though not the contract to provide – as an external partner for the staff-led mutual, which will itself become the provider.

In an article for the Guardian Policy Hub, he suggests this gets round the procurement problem where in public services a tender process is run for virtually any service. For the nascent mutual, he argues, ‘this can feel like climbing Everest. With no trading history or commercial skills, being pitted against experienced competition is a deterrent. Why go to all the trouble of forming a mutual only to get knocked out in round one?’

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Posted in Campaign4Change, mutualisation, mutuals, procurement, public sector, public services

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