Co-operative News

Submitted by Kathryn Busby on 17 August 2009

The following report from the Co-ops UK Annual Conference, held at the end of June, was kindly supplied by Bob Cannell of SUMA. It appears the co-operative sector is in rude health compared to the mainstream economy.

Some statistics:

Nationally in the UK there are now 5,000 co-ops with 11.5 million members. Turnover is approximately £30 billion, with profits of £540 million and assets of £10 billion.

The recession:

Trade for most co-ops is up despite the recession. Co-op grocery shop sales are growing faster than the industry as a whole (18% compared to 7%).  Shoppers are attracted to co-ops as a result of the ethically-led business and marketing strategy.

A success story:

The single fastest growing worker co-op is Dulas which is a renewable energy installation contractor in Wales.

A date for your diary:

2012 is the UN year of cooperatives!

Banks and building societies:

The Co-operative Bank goes from strength to strength with great business success over the last 15 years despite refusing £1 billion loans to non-ethical businesses. However, only 2% of banks in the UK are co-operative compared to 15 to 20% in Europe. At least building society de-mutualisations have now stopped. None of the privatised societies has survived (what an indictment!) but the remaining societies have had to pay to bail out the badly run banks - the Nationwide’s profits were 60% down due to this government 'tax'. Building societies are performing better than investor owned banks for finance, customer service, access to services, risk management, sustainablity and reliability – and it was the building societies that stopped the banks forcing the introduction of charges to use ATMs.  

Co-operative Schools:

An International Co-operative Schools conference ran alongside this year’s conference. Co-operative schools attended from all parts of the UK, Spain and Italy.  In the UK, a target of 100 co-operative schools by the general election is expected to be reached.

Progress States-side:

Paul Hazen from the USA told the conference that President Obama is a co-operative supporter, a member of two co-ops, has appointed co-operators to key business positions and has turned to the co-operative model for his ideal of 'Bottom Up Economics'. His administration is putting in a lot of funding and promoting a co-op based national health service for the 40 million Americans who have no health care.  

 
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