Anna Turley considers the Coalition’s plans to ‘mutualise’ Cleveland Fire Service and asks whether it truly matches up to co-operative principles.

When is a Co-op not a Co-op?

Answer – when it has no employee engagement, no community support, no democratic accountability and can be sold off to the highest bidder.

This is the worrying fate facing Cleveland Fire Service. The Coalition government, not content with slashing £9m – almost a quarter of the service’s budget – wants to create a burning financial platform to force the authority to spin out our fire services into what it is calling a ‘mutual’.

However, these plans, or at least what we can find out amid the secrecy surrounding them, make a mockery of the term ‘mutual’. They threaten vital emergency services in one of the most heavily industrialised parts of the country, as Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop outlined in an Adjournment Debate he secured on these proposals.

As the former Co-ordinator of the Co-operative Councils Network – a group of councils supporting the development of co-operative local public services, I know more than a little about co-operative and mutual models. Co-operative Councils adhere very strongly to the belief in certain values and principles. These include democratic participation, openness, equality and social responsibility.

The work Co-operative Councils undertakes looks at how local authorities can work more co-operatively with residents – putting them in the driving seat and making sure the needs of residents come first. It was about better co-operation between the state and the citizen, supporting the development of credit unions, ethical charters for local businesses, youth trusts, co-operative housing, schools co-operatives, and community environment co-operatives.

It has never advocated employee ‘spin offs’ and is seen by many as a bulwark against the fragmentation and privatisation of the state. It aims to strengthen its legitimacy by putting more power in the hands of citizens, and keeping it away from the reach of private companies.

By contrast, the government’s ideologically driven plans for public service mutuals are about breaking up, undermining or cutting out the state. They are about allowing a handful of employees to benefit from spinning out public assets, and to create a space where the private sector can tender for the services or even gobble the mutuals up later. Moreover, it is simply not appropriate, indeed is downright dangerous, to trial new approaches in areas like the fire service.

In Cleveland, there is no support from employees. In fact, the Fire Brigade Union is vehemently opposed. There has been no community consultation, and Freedom Of Information requests to obtain more information have been refused. Major legislative changes were attempted through the back door via the ‘Regulatory Reform Committee’ so they would not be debated on the floor of the House of Commons. There is no information on how the accountability to the public will be ensured, what the implications will be for employees, or who will be responsible for risk in a service which is about life and death.

There is nothing ‘mutual’ or ‘co-operative’ about these proposals. They are simply a fig-leaf for a Tory privatisation agenda, and I hope they never see the light of day.

Anna Turley is the Labour and Co-operative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Redcar and former Co-ordinator of the Co-operative Councils Network.

How should we deal with household indebtedness?

Large numbers of  families use door stop and pay day lenders. The growth of the high interest, short term loan industry is matched by the squeezing of people’s wages and the decline in their living standards. What can a future Labour government do to help reduce household indebtedness, and how can the Labour movement provide an alternative to high interest lending ?

Monday 13 May, 4.30-6pm
Committee room 9

Speakers:

• Chris Pond (Chair, Credit Action; Chair, Centre for Social Justice working group on serious personal indebtedness)
• Mark Lyonette (Chief Executive Association of British Credit Unions)
• Russell Hamblin-Boone (Chief Executive of the Consumer Finance Association)

Chair: Chris Leslie MP (Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury)

If you would like to attend please email onenationregister@gmail.com

The Co-operative Party has submitted written evidence to the Welsh Government’s Co-operatives and Mutuals Commission. Deputy General Secretary Karen Wilkie outlines our case.

The Commission posed a number of questions for the movement to respond to – all very pertinent to how the Welsh Government could help co-ops – which it should.  What these may have caused some to overlook however is the key question: – what can co-ops do for Wales?

Co-ops have a role in helping to reshape the Welsh economy.  They not only create wealth, they redistribute it more equitably and retain it in the local community.

The size of the co-operative movement in Wales and its contribution to the economy are often underestimated.  Periodically, surveys have been commissioned to assess the size of the co-operative economy in Wales.   However, such snap-shots lose their value after a very short period of time.  We believe that co-operative development would be better served by identifying co-operative businesses within each sector in the official on-going statistics produced by Stats Wales and the ONS.  This is not an easy thing for them to do, because co-ops and mutuals exist in pretty much every part of the Welsh economy.  But this is exactly why it has to be done.  Measurement is important, to show where the sectors are for growth and to measure the effects of government or other intervention.  It’s no good knowing where we want to be if don’t know where we are, which direction we are going, or how fast.

Not only is the size of the co-op movement hard to measure, so is it’s true value.  The huge benefits to the local economy that Swansea City’s Premier League status has brought are only just beginning to be quantified.  It is widely acknowledged that this current success can be traced to the actions of the Supporters Trust in helping to save the club from extinction over ten years ago.  Similarly, the actions of the miners in creating a workers’ co-operative to save Tower colliery not only saved their own jobs, but contributed to the economic regeneration of the local area for a number of years.

But, as Einstein apparently said, not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.  And GDP cannot be the measure of all things co-operative.  Co-operatives don’t only redistribute wealth in an equitable way – they also spread power across the community to workers, to consumers and to service users.  And a profitable business that only generates wealth for a small number of owners or shareholders – who may not even be based in Wales – and pays its employees poorly or on short-term contracts, cannot be considered a success for the Welsh economy.

Having said that, we have answered the questions posed, and you can find our full response here (PDF).

Smallholder farmers produce the majority of the world’s food, but they also make up half of the world’s hungriest people. Many rely on co-operatives to help them get their food to market. The G8 summit this June takes place in the UK and it is our first major chance to make a difference. Food and hunger top the agenda for these global decision makers, and they have the power to change the lives of millions of smallholders for the better.

Thousands have already signed the Fairtrade Foundation petition asking David Cameron to go further for smallholders and champion a better deal for them at the G8 summit, but they need thousands more to add their name before they hand the petition to him just before World Fair Trade Day (Saturday 11 May). It’s just a few weeks away.

We need to act now if we want to succeed. So if you haven’t already signed the petition, click here to do it now. If you’ve already signed, there are two more things you can do:

1) Ask your friends and family to sign the petition at fairtrade.org.uk/gofurther, or share the link on Facebook and Twitter

2) Collect signatures in your community – find all the resources you need, including petition forms, at fairtrade.org.uk/makefoodfair.

Co-operative Trust Schools, launched by the last Labour Government, are a major success story. There are now hundreds of co-operative schools across England. Co-operative schools represent a co-operative response to the break-up of the education system, seen by many as a stage in its privatisation. This Bill will ensure that the large demand for co-operative status is better able to be met.

The Bill was developed with the Co-operative College. Mervyn Wilson, Principal of the Co-operative College stated, “In the last five years nearly 500 schools have adopted co-operative models, the measures proposed in the bill would help further develop the strong co-operative presence now emerging within our education sector.”.

The Bill has two key clauses.  Firstly, it calls for schools to be able to register themselves as Industrial & Provident Societies, and for an amendment to the Education Act 2006 to ensure that nursery schools are able to establish school Trusts. Schools currently have to work around existing legislation, as no provision is made in the relevant acts for Industrial & Provident Societies.

Nursery schools are currently excluded from becoming parts of Trusts, and the Bill also proposes that by enabling nursery schools to become full members of Trusts, or academies, this would help to provide a vehicle for parental and family engagement in Early Years education.

Meg Munn MP stated that; “Children get the best education when schools, parents and communities work together and when they feel their views are taken into account. This approach is at the heart of co-operative schools; supporting children to feel valued and to take responsibility for themselves and their communities. My bill will make it easier to set up co-operative schools embedding these values in education right from nurseries through to secondary schools.”

The Bill is supported by teaching union NASUWT and the Shadow Secretary of State for Education Stephen Twigg MP.

Chris Keates, General Secretary, NASUWT; “Co-operative solutions put stakeholders in the driving seat of securing quality education for all children and young people.  This Bill would provide opportunities for applying the principle of mutualism in a context of increasing institutional diversity in a way that assures and secures the principles and values of public education.”

Stephen Twigg MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Education; ‘Co-operative schools play an important part in our education system, we in the Labour Party want to see their continued development. The continued expansion and use of Co-operative values and models in education is something that we are studying within our policy review. This Bill gives further examples of practical measures we could take forward this important area of policy’.

ENDS

Note for editors.

1. Meg Munn MP will be presenting the Bill at 2.30pm today (Wednesday 17^th April) in the House of Commons. For further comment please contact Joanne Wilson 0114 258 2010
2. The Co-operative Party is the political arm of the co-operative movement and Labour’s sister party. There are 9 Welsh Assembly Labour Co-operative members, 32 Labour Co-operative MPs and over a 1000 Labour Co-operative local councillors.
3. For more information and full briefing please contact Joe Fortune, Parliamentary Officer, Co-operative Party  (j.fortune@party.coop – 07984787947).

This afternoon, I will rise in the Commons to introduce the Co-operative Schools Bill. It is a landmark in the extraordinary story of co-operative education, a movement that has hugely expanded in just a few years since the Co-operative College and Labour’s then education ministers embarked on this journey.

I have a vision of a society that values self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity.  These are the values of the Co-operative movement and of the Co-operative Party, which I am proud to represent in Parliament.

Those values are evident in Co-operative Trust schools where everyone – teachers, parents, pupils and the local community – work together for mutual benefit. Performance improves; pupils learn and are more engaged with the life of the school. The best possible environment for young people to learn and develop is created – where everyone is encouraged to take responsibility for their own actions, the local community has a say in how the school is run, and with a commitment to equality and equity everyone is helped to be the best they can.

In 2008 David Cameron, then Leader of the Opposition, spoke of the desire to see a “new generation of co-operative schools… funded by the taxpayer but owned by parents and the local community.”

However there is no sign that this has been attempted. Academies have become the centre piece of education policy. Nor has the free-schools policy led to a new generation of parent-owned co-operatives – to date just one of the free schools is expected to operate as a co-operative.  Much is said about choice in education, but if this is to become a reality we need to allow co-operative school trusts to flourish and remove hurdles that make that difficult.

At the moment the legal forms of co-operatives are determined as Industrial and Provident Societies, or co-operative or community benefit societies, and there is no provision in the relevant acts for co-operative schools. They have to work around the existing legislation in a clumsy and confusing way.

So the first clause of my very short Bill seeks to amend Education Acts to include these legal forms and so ensure a level playing field with other school structures.

Despite the legal difficulties, in just five years co-operative schools have become the third largest grouping within the English education system, with currently over 450 operating. 30 have become co-operative converter academies, a small number are co-operative sponsor academies and we have seen the creation of the first co-operative multi-academy trust.

The Co-operative College provide an effective support system, and the Schools Co-operative Society has been established as the national network and representative of co-operative schools in England.

They have developed a distinct model that enables schools to embed co-operative values into the ethos of the school.  This also includes ethical values in keeping with the founders of the co-operative movement – openness, honesty, social responsibility and caring for others.

Lipson Community College in Plymouth was an early co-operative trust school, now a co-operative academy. The arrangements for involving parents, “Parent Voice”, was recognised as ‘outstanding’ in an Ofsted survey on parental and community engagement. “Student Voice” at de Vinci College in Derby gives pupils a real role in school decisions, allowing them to sit in on interview panels and join the staff on training sessions.

As the Secretary of State for Education has recognised, when extending the academies programme to primary schools, it is vital that children get the best foundation at primary level to realise their potential at secondary level.  I agree, and I think we also need to get it right at nursery level.

Nursery schools are in many ways the most naturally co-operative part of the education sector with their engagement with parents and carers. Enabling nursery schools to become full members of trusts would strengthen that engagement in early years, and help develop the nursery to secondary vision of education which best enables young people to realise their potential.

Consequently clause 2 of my bill would remove the relevant clause in the Act enabling nursery schools to be established as school trusts.

I believe co-operative schools are very well placed not only to ensure high standards of education, but also to teach children that the values of co-operation have a great deal to offer.

For young people the experience of supporting each other in school and seeing the support the community and other co-operatives give, helps to shape character and inculcate a positive approach toward others. There is evidence that young people brought up in that environment continue to contribute to their communities long after they have left school.

In the words of Pat McGovern, headteacher at Helston Community College, “The last thing the people of Cornwall want is to see a big education chain coming in to run school services and take money out of the area. … Our co-operative is about a mutual solution to local needs.”

The education system should always be based on support, collaboration and co-operation at every level.

Meg Munn MP is Labour & Co-operative MP for Sheffield Heeley. Please sign up to support the Bill and read more about it here.

Co-operative candidates, many of them existing councillors, are standing in every county council area in England with the exception of Warwickshire.

With Ed Miliband launching Labour’s campaign with a speech at the East of England Co-op and the ever-growing interest in co-operatives in local government, we look forward to a strong co-operative voice in county councils after the election. County Councils in England have responsibility for education, libraries and social care – key areas for co-operative policy.

If you are a Labour & Co-operative candidate in May, good luck! Please let us know how your campaign is going and how you are incorporating co-operative ideas in your message. And on election night please make sure we know about your success – use #LabCoopWin or #LabCoopGain on Twitter so we can see how well you are all doing.

The Co-operative Party has been working with the Co-operative College. College Principal Mervyn Wilson has written for the Co-operative News outlining the growth of co-op schools to over 450 schools across England. As Mervyn outlines, “this represents a co-operative response to the break-up of the education system, seen by many as a stage in its privatisation. The attraction of the co-operative model is that it enables schools and governing bodies to safeguard their values and community links. Most trusts comprise groups of schools working together with key stakeholders for the benefit of their local communities. Often, such shared trusts provide a legal framework for existing collaborative partnerships.”

The Bill will call for schools to be able to register themselves as Industrial & Provident Societies and for an amendment to the Education Act 2006 to ensure that nursery schools are able to establish school Trusts. Schools currently have to work around existing legislation as no provision is made in the relevant acts for Industrial & Provident Societies. Nursery schools are currently excluded from becoming parts of Trusts, and the Bill proposes that enabling nursery schools to become full members of Trusts, or academies, would help provide a vehicle for parental and family engagement in Early Years education.

Pat McGovern, head teacher at Helston Community College and one of the key drivers of the 18-strong Helston and Lizard Peninsula Education Partnership Trust, said:

“There is a strong sense of community in Cornwall, and it is natural for us to think of how we do things ourselves through shared action.

“The last thing the people of Cornwall want to see is a big education chain coming in to run school services and take money out of the area. That money is best kept serving the local economy and local community. Our co-operative is about a mutual solution to local needs.”

Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg MP said:

“Co-operative schools play an important part in our education system, we in the Labour Party want to see their continued development. The continued expansion and use of Co-operative values and models in education is something that we are studying within our policy review. This Bill gives further examples of practical measures we could take forward this important area of policy.”

The briefing note concludes by stating: “Let’s look at how the experience of co-operative schools can be shared with other parts of  the education system – from Sure Start and early years to FE and HE institutions, based on not just conviction but growing evidence that co-operation and mutual working can secure sustainable improvement  alongside strong accountability to the communities served.”

Please see a briefing note and the full Co-operative Schools Bill for full details.

You can sign up to support the Bill here.

A 10 Minute Rule Bill on Co-operative Schools will be introduced by Meg Munn, Labour and Co-operative MP for Sheffield Heeley, on Wednesday 17 April.

Developed with the Co-operative College, the Bill will call for schools to be able to register themselves as Industrial & Provident Societies and for an amendment to the Education Act 2006 to ensure that nursery schools are able to establish school Trusts. Schools currently have to work around existing legislation as no provision is made in the relevant acts for Industrial & Provident Societies. Nursery schools are currently excluded from becoming parts of Trusts, and the Bill proposes that enabling nursery schools to become full members of Trusts, or academies, would help provide a vehicle for parental and family engagement in Early Years education.

Read on for more on the Bill.

Please sign the petition below to show your support for the Bill.