How can the Government best develop a policy strategy to implement the Coalition’s commitment to promote mutuals?

The Group accepts that the Coalition Government has been in power for just over a year and so there are limitations to how easily one can gauge their success in promoting mutuality over such a limited period of time. However, from the evidence given to the Inquiry, it is clear that the Government has not yet developed a clear strategy to promote mutuals.

The Inquiry found that the Government appears to have concentrated its policy efforts on encouraging the development of new mutuals to provide public services rather than to support the existing financial mutual sector.

Read more Fostering Diversity: Promoting Mutuals ›

The Mutuals Yearbook 2010 published today confirms that the mutual sector is growing in strength, even during challenging economic times.

In a year which saw a crisis of ownership in a range of areas from financial services, to football, to foreign takeovers, the mutual model continues to provide a successful alternative. The report shows that mutuals are being established in new areas, and that the gross annual turnover of UK mutuals in 2010 exceeded £100 billion with the number of people employed in the sector topping one million, both for the first time.

Read more Growing Mutuals sector gathers momentum ›

A new report by Mutuo, the leading mutuals think tank, advocates the mutualisation of the Post Office as a way of harnessing the energy, skills and enthusiasm of the Post Office’s customers and employees.

The new report, entitled Post Office: Made Mutual supports measures set out in the Government’s Postal Services Bill which advocates the transfer of Post Office Limited (POL) to a mutual organisation.

The report welcomes this radical new approach to public services but it is clear that before POL can be transferred to any different corporate body, it must first pass the test as a sustainable business.

Read more Post Office should be mutualised, new report says ›

An Oxford University report is calling on the coalition government to promote mutuals in order to aid economic stability in the financial system.

The report, to be launched at all three major political party conferences, argues that a stronger mutual sector would promote effective competition and mitigate against systemic risk. It urges the government not to return to the ‘business as usual model’ for the financial services sector, which proved such a risk to the economy.
Read more Oxford University report: Mutuals deliver economic stability ›

This publication is the first in what will be a series of pamphlets looking at the potential for new mutual organisations providing a range of services to the public.

Our objective is to highlight where high quality mutuals can combine business efficiency with accountability to customers, staff and other stakeholders. Read more Public Services: Made Mutual ›

Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have today been challenged to lay down their plans for growing the mutual sector.

In recent weeks there has been a flurry of speeches and statements by the parties about their support for co-operative and mutual initiatives.

Today the mutual sector has responded with its plans for putting people at the heart of business and society in the first ever Mutuals Manifesto.

The Manifesto calls for more businesses to belong to their customers, more employee owned firms and more community led public services.

The next Government should commit to:

* Ensure that mutuals receive equal treatment with plcs by:
– Establishing a Government office for mutuals with a designated Minister for Mutuals
– Committing to update mutuals legislation

* Make sure that Regulators act in a way that respects diverse forms of ownership by:
– Altering the terms of the Financial Services Authority to make it sustain a full range of business types

* Promote mutual ownership as a way of serving the public interest by:
– Evaluating the return of Northern Rock to the mutual sector
– Establishing a unit to convert public service providers to mutuals
– Supporting the Commission on Ownership

Mutuo Chief Executive, Peter Hunt, said:

“The nature of the recession has meant that fundamental questions are being asked about the way businesses are owned and how our economy is structured.

The Government must be responsible for ensuring that people have a choice about who they do business with. Mutuals exist to share the rewards of enterprise with those that earn them; there are lessons in this for how we structure business and our community more widely.

It has been good to see politicians talking about mutuals in recent news but we now need to see political parties take action to help build a stronger and more vibrant mutual sector.”

View the Mutuals Manifesto 2010

The UK economy – as with most economies in the developed world – is largely driven by businesses that are owned by investors and for many decades, the profit motive has been its driving-force. While this ownership model provides a powerful driver, it also creates a problem. Being effective at delivering private benefit is all very well, but an economy based on the quFunding the future an alternative to capitalismest for the private benefit of some does not seek the common good of all.

Trading is probably the one single activity which has the most impact upon people’s every day lives, upon human relationships, upon the physical environment and upon the natural world. So the underlying purpose of that trade – what it is actually for – is of fundamental importance. What trading organisations are designed to achieve, what drives them and the way in which they are owned and governed, have a deep impact on today’s world and how our society is organised and governed.

This is even more significant when seen in the context of today’s global issues – diminishing natural resources, climate change, and global poverty. It makes little sense to attempt to solve these problems without acknowledging that the pursuit of growth and the maximisation of private gain might at best hinder these endeavour, and at worst be a major part of the problem. There is now an urgent imperative to find a different and fairer basis for business – and for business ownership – that does not ignore today’s social and environmental concerns.

There are clear past and present-day precedents for businesses trading for the public benefit, driven by self-help and community support rather than by narrow self-interest. Although such precedents are a long way from being mainstream, these alternative ownership models are being developed to meet today’s needs.

This is not a call for a new programme of re-nationalisation. Instead, it is an argument for greater community-based business ownership and the active engagement of a wider group of interests in owning and running socially-relevant enterprises. Significant change will only happen if there is a social movement with sufficient support to make it happen. If we want change, then it is for us – not governments, markets or institutions – to bring about change.

Read ‘Funding the future: an alternative to capitalism’

View the report