The Guardian editorialises:
The Co-operative Group’s 2.9 million voting members will be getting their ballot forms this weekend, in time for next month’s AGM. These are difficult times for the once-mighty flagship of UK mutualism.
Almost exactly two years after the wretched debacle of the Co-op Bank threatened the group’s survival, it has reached the end of the first, rescue, stage of a three-stage recovery programme.
The good news is that, thanks to food and funerals, it is back in profit.
But the bank now mostly belongs to hedge funds, the group’s farms and pharmacies have been sold, and there’s still £808m of debt.
The next step is to rebuild.
But there is a real risk that the changes the members are being asked to approve at the AGM will carve the co-operation out of the Co-op Group.
It may still look like a mutual to its customers. It will still nod at member involvement. But it will quack like an Asda.
The catastrophe of the bank revealed a board that was not fit for purpose.
Its members were committed and well-intentioned people, but they had been delegated with little regard for the skill set needed to hold to account the management of a multimillion-pound business.
The need for reform was accepted: the new nine-person board will include just three member-nominated directors.
But when the original proposal from Lord Myners was for none (“no place for amateurs”, he said), it seemed better than nothing.
Except that now it has come to the vote, it turns out that only three of the six candidates put forward by the members’ council are considered qualified in the commercial and strategic skills thought necessary.
The board has chosen the system of democracy most recently used in Hong Kong: not an election, a coronation.
It would be good to suppose the Co-op Group is struggling to balance pragmatism with principle, but, on this showing, principle seems to have lost already.
The handling of the question over political contributions, on which members are also voting, only adds to that impression.
For more than 100 years, the group has funded the Co-operative party which supports MPs, MSPs, AMs in Wales and 700 councillors.
Its purpose is to promote the co-operative movement and its principles in public life.
It also supports the movement’s influence in co-operative councils – including Lambeth, in south London – credit unions, housing projects and local public services delivered on a co-operative model.
Now the funding, £1m a year, is in jeopardy.
The official motion for ballot, which comes without context, appears to invite rejection of the principle of a political fund.
The members’ council wants it withdrawn to allow time for further discussion and consultation.
The board wants to press ahead and get a decision. This is unnecessary. Funding is already committed to the end of next year, so there would be no saving.
There is a real appetite for alternatives to conventional capitalism, and the co-operative movement has a global record for developing them.
To abandon its political contribution would simply undermine the economic ecology in which the Co-op’s distinctive brand can prosper.
The Co-operative Group’s 2.9 million voting members will be getting their ballot forms this weekend, in time for next month’s AGM. These are difficult times for the once-mighty flagship of UK mutualism.
Almost exactly two years after the wretched debacle of the Co-op Bank threatened the group’s survival, it has reached the end of the first, rescue, stage of a three-stage recovery programme.
The good news is that, thanks to food and funerals, it is back in profit.
But the bank now mostly belongs to hedge funds, the group’s farms and pharmacies have been sold, and there’s still £808m of debt.
The next step is to rebuild.
But there is a real risk that the changes the members are being asked to approve at the AGM will carve the co-operation out of the Co-op Group.
It may still look like a mutual to its customers. It will still nod at member involvement. But it will quack like an Asda.
The catastrophe of the bank revealed a board that was not fit for purpose.
Its members were committed and well-intentioned people, but they had been delegated with little regard for the skill set needed to hold to account the management of a multimillion-pound business.
The need for reform was accepted: the new nine-person board will include just three member-nominated directors.
But when the original proposal from Lord Myners was for none (“no place for amateurs”, he said), it seemed better than nothing.
Except that now it has come to the vote, it turns out that only three of the six candidates put forward by the members’ council are considered qualified in the commercial and strategic skills thought necessary.
The board has chosen the system of democracy most recently used in Hong Kong: not an election, a coronation.
It would be good to suppose the Co-op Group is struggling to balance pragmatism with principle, but, on this showing, principle seems to have lost already.
The handling of the question over political contributions, on which members are also voting, only adds to that impression.
For more than 100 years, the group has funded the Co-operative party which supports MPs, MSPs, AMs in Wales and 700 councillors.
Its purpose is to promote the co-operative movement and its principles in public life.
It also supports the movement’s influence in co-operative councils – including Lambeth, in south London – credit unions, housing projects and local public services delivered on a co-operative model.
Now the funding, £1m a year, is in jeopardy.
The official motion for ballot, which comes without context, appears to invite rejection of the principle of a political fund.
The members’ council wants it withdrawn to allow time for further discussion and consultation.
The board wants to press ahead and get a decision. This is unnecessary. Funding is already committed to the end of next year, so there would be no saving.
There is a real appetite for alternatives to conventional capitalism, and the co-operative movement has a global record for developing them.
To abandon its political contribution would simply undermine the economic ecology in which the Co-op’s distinctive brand can prosper.
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