Co-operative News

  The co-operative movement is “moving away from non-food retailing”, according to the Plymouth and South West Co-operative Society. It is a conclusion difficult to shy away from.   Plymouth is one of the most recent to exit the department store market, having sold its non-food stores earlier this year. The buyer is Vergo, which

  It is often said that journalists write the first draft of history. But, when it comes to the UK’s version of the global banking crisis, it is MPs who have produced one of the earliest and most relevant analyses. And our movement should be very grateful that its collective authors – the House of

  If we were living in less ‘interesting times’ – as the Chinese proverb puts it – the Butterfill Act would quite possibly now be fundamentally restructuring the mutual sector, particularly those mutuals providing financial services.   The Butterfill Act – named after the sponsoring Conservative MP, Sir John Butterfill – enables mutuals of different

  The collapse of the Dunfermline Building Society is the event we feared in recent months. Nor is it necessarily the only major building society that will cease trading before the global crisis passes at some point in the next few years.   Rumours persist of more societies that have loaned excessively on commercial properties

  A few months ago, this column regretted that not more co-ops and social enterprises operate residential care homes. In response, Bupa – the British United Provident Association – suggested I might be overlooking its role in the sector.   “You may not be aware that Bupa is one of the country’s largest operators of

David Taylor is a long-standing friend of the co-operative movement who will be sorely missed when he steps down at the next election. He showed his commitment to the cause yet again by hosting a discussion at the House of Commons on the role of mutuality in responding to the global economic crisis.   It

  I fear this may be a continual theme in 2010. Another column, another inquest.   The year is already shaping up painfully for the mutual sector. In the last column we considered the sad fate of Equity Shoes. This time it is the turn of the Presbyterian Mutual Society, based in Belfast. I have

  A month into the grim new year and the first collapse of one of the big mutuals has occurred. Equity Shoes was part of the revered history both of the workers’ co-operative movement and of Leicester’s industrial scene.   Equity Shoes was a producers’ co-operative, manufacturing shoes in what had been an industrial heartland

  Something is rotten in the state of Ireland. Specifically, something is very rotten in Irish banks. And, just for once (for good reason), I include the country’s last two building societies within the definition of ‘banks’.   When we talk of Ireland’s remaining building societies we must speak very definitely in the present, not

  Happy new year is the traditional refrain for January. Except this year, it seems very inappopriate – this may be anything but a happy 2009.   All those who spent their youthful years warning that we had a casino economy, built on a pack of cards (sorry for the mixed metaphors), has been proved

  Building society demutualisations had been wrong, a Conservative Treasury spokesman admitted at the first ever Mutuals Forum. “We can see with hindsight what a mistake they were,” said Mark Hoban, the shadow financial secretary. “Those institutions were too small as listed entities to survive.”   However, Hoban resisted a suggestion from conference delegate Vivian

  Social enterprises are increasingly one of ministers’ preferred delivery mechanisms for breaking down the NHS monopoly. Care minister Phil Hope recently announced £450,000 funding to establish six social enterprise projects, designed to move services out of the state sector.   NHS West Midlands is to set-up respite care schemes for disabled young people and