The Party’s 2021 AGM, originally put back from June because of the pandemic, was postponed for a second time in October following the murder of David Amess MP.  It was re-scheduled for 6 December with almost 150 delegates and individual members present on-line.

The AGM gives members the opportunity to hear reports on the Party’s activity and progress over the last year and to ask questions on the accounts.

Recognition Awards were also presented at the AGM –

• Chris Herries Award – Lynda MacDermott
• Achievement Awards– KC Gordon & Cllr Ste Powers
• Councillors’ Award – Cllr Tina Bhartwas
• Youth Award – Kira Lewis

Voting took place on-line, with one delegate per organisation casting the weighted card vote:

1. Board Report & Accounts 2020 – approved
2. Appointment of Auditors: Crowe UK – approved
3. Amendment to the Rules of Co-operative Party Ltd – approved.  This amendment is subject to the approval of the Financial Conduct Authority and will allow us to have future AGMs in-person or on-line or hybrid.
4. Individual membership subscriptions 2022 – approved

The on-line voting also included voting on Annual Conference business, including changes to the Party’s Rule Book on the Westminster Group, a motion on widening the pool of election candidates and the policy documents on High Streets and Social Care. All were passed.  A further motion on representing the wider co-operative movement was debated but remitted to the NEC as part of the review of the structure of the NEC.

All the papers for the AGM can still be accessed on the website here.  You can find the full report of the AGM here.

In 2021 we started a review of the membership of the NEC ahead of the next elections in 2023, and initial views were sought from members in an online consultation over the summer.

Following that initial consultation, subscribing societies, local parties, branches, networks and individual members will be invited to comment on a series of options for changes to the membership of the NEC.  The consultation paper will be launched in January.

The NEC reviews the Party’s Objectives and Strategic Plan every three years and in meetings between September and November set out a new three-year plan for 2022-24.

In the new year, information on the on the Party’s key actions under each of our five objectives will be circulated to local parties and affiliates.

Each quarter, the General Secretary reports to the NEC on the Party’s activity and progress towards our Strategic Objectives.  Here is a summary of the most recent report:

One of the dominating events of this period  was the Party’s Annual Conference ‘Building Community Power’. This included:

• New movement wide ‘Building Community Power’ sessions to feed to into Gordon Brown’s Constitutional Commission.
• Tracy Brabin hosting a co-operative summit in West Yorkshire
• New co-operative representation on @ScottishLabour Energy Transition Commission
• A new co-operative rural and coastal taskforce reporting to Co-op MP and Shadow Secretary of State EFRA Luke Pollard.
• The launch of the Tower Hamlets Co-operative Commission
• Over 2,000 people watched or took part in the conference and events.
• The launch of our new policy statements on Social Care and High Streets.
• Campaign sessions on co-operative media and climate change.

We had over 50 speakers including:

• Co-ops small and large
• Think Tanks (CLES and New Local)
• Labour Party Chair Anneliese Dodds, Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar, Welsh Economy Minister Vaughan Gething, Co-op Metro Mayors Tracy Brabin and Andy Burnham
• Sessions with Parliamentarians from each Co-op Parliamentary Group and with equalities network.

Our focus has been on the build up to elections 2022 – especially some of the all-out elections in London and the West Midlands as well as across the whole of Scotland and Wales.

We currently have just under 400 candidates in our local candidate development programme with a lot of work happening within the team and regional organisers to put us in a good place before the start of next year. This work includes:

• Running regional awareness sessions online.
• Liaising with Local Labour Group leaders and organisers.
• Communications targeted at individual candidates and regions.
• Maintaining strong communication about candidates coming through to local party councils.

In addition:

• The Westminster Panel is now over 100 and has had two rounds of externally facilitated training.
• The local government training has had two more cycles  with training provided internally and externally in partnership with the Campaign House.
• The Party surveyed past candidates regarding their experience as a co-op candidate in order to refine our support package ahead of 2022. The main reflections included the speed of certificate delivery and visibility about the candidate support hub.

Some of our key work in the area of this strategic objective through the period has happened within the three Parliaments of Westminster, Holyrood and Cardiff Bay. We have focussed on access to cash/financial inclusion, employee ownership, land reform and co-operative solutions to tackling the climate emergency. We have seen contributions to debates, new legislation being introduced and oral questions all forming a strong performance of co-operators in Parliament through this period.

In Local Government we have developed and launched a new co-op commission in Tower Hamlets and had the London Co-op Party Council secure a motion at the London Labour Party Conference calling for a London wide version to be created by Sadiq Khan.

The Co-operative Party supported Anneliese Dodds’ work on her ‘Stronger Together’ Labour Party Policy review throughout this period. There is a fantastic bank of co-operative case studies and policy included in the resulting reports titled ‘Labour is working’ and ‘Stronger Together’.

Further detail includes:

• Co-op Mayor Dan Jarvis launched his ownership hub in South Yorkshire.
• The Co-operative Party co-hosted the Stronger Together ‘Communities’ event at Labour Party Conference with the Labour Party and Labour LGA. The Party was also represented by the General Secretary at its main launch event in Brighton.
• We have supported Councils to continue to pass the Fair Tax motions and become Fair Tax councils.  During this period both Glasgow and Exeter have done so.
• The Party has supported Gareth Thomas and the All-Party Mutuals Group on their work opposing the demutualisation of LV.
• Huw Irranca-Davies MS introduced a new private member’s bill on the introduction of a Marcora Law for Wales. This passed its 2^nd reading. In addition, Christina Rees MP secured a Westminster debate on the same topic for across the UK, and the Scottish Party has supported Richard Leonard’s similar work in Scotland.
• The Party launched the Co-operative Recovery policy paper at the Co-operative Comeback Summit held just before summer. This event saw hundreds take part in a number of sessions, which platformed a wide range of co-operators across the movement.
• The Party in Scotland supported Rhoda Grant’s Land Reform debate.
• Monica Lennon, also in the Scottish Parliament, made the case for community energy from the frontbench through debates on the energy crisis.
• Vikki Howells MS has begun a piece of work in Cardiff Bay on the promotion of Co-operative community transport. The first part of this was an Oral Question to Ministers.
• In a major speech in October Vaughan Gething MS, Welsh Economy Minister, began to outline the steps the Government in Wales will take to deliver upon its commitments to double the number of employee-owned businesses in Wales.

A lot of our communications work through this period has been in support of the above output. It has been a quieter period in terms of our supporter list growth but in addition to supporting the above:

• Meg Hillier, Preet Gill and Rachael Maskell all contributed content and debate interventions on the topic of supporting our high streets in Westminster debates.
• Councils including Liverpool, Newcastle and Lewisham all passed the Co-operative Party’s motion on High Streets.
• We supported Rhoda Grant in the introduction of new legislation in Holyrood on a new ‘Right to Food’ Bill. This Bill will go out for consultation and again the Party will be supporting Rhoda through this process.
• We also ensured that our wider Food Justice campaign has promoted the best of what the co-operative movement is doing on the issue, with numerous pieces of content surrounding the Co-op Group’s network of community larders – this has included Parliamentarian visits and video. We also marked World Food Day with strong communications content.
• Through this reporting period the Government launched its second part of the National Food Strategy.  The Party responded and supplied content from the relevant Shadow Secretary of State and a range of contributors from the wider co-op movement.
• The Party also generated supported for a mutual solution to the Channel 4 privatisation, with contributions in Westminster and digital hand raisers.
• Following Jim McMahon MP visits to local Co-operatives in Manchester the Party issued a range of educative pieces of content about the co-ops and about the need for expansion of the co-operative sector.
• Preet Gill MP delivered the Co-operative Party’s fraternal greetings to Labour Party Conference.

The Party enjoys good relationships with its organisational members, and we have continued to ensure that our work reflects their priorities. The Party has continued to show a strong ability to recruit new members and that can be seen within the separate membership report.

Our work on better protecting shop workers has been a key part of our work with societies through this reporting period. Our Party’s work greatly contributed to an incredible effort that saw the issue be debated and voted upon in both the House of Commons and House of Lords.

We have maintained a strong focus on engaging and strong join asks and our regional organisers have been focused on increasing the number of Party meetings focused on our campaigns and key issues.

Further detail:

• A Labour Party frontbench amendment on retail workers was debated and voted on at the Report Stage of the Police Courts and Sentencing Bill. In addition, the Party worked with other partners to ensure strong cross-party support that saw a Conservative led amendment also be tabled and gain backbench conservative support. The Government ultimately conceded that it would consider further protections before the Bill reaches the House of Lords. The Party worked to ensure that at second reading in the Lords that the issue was again raised, and pressure applied to Government Ministers.
• The Party conducted one of its regular Subscribing Societies meetings with our Societies directors and Presidents. The positive meeting saw a range of issues discussed and actions for the Party to follow up on.
• We published the members’ Pioneer Magazine, focused on the Conference theme of Building Community Power.
• Our work on tackling Modern Slavery came very much from our work with our organisational members and during the period the Party marked Anti-slavery Day and promoted the Party’s charter. Through the period Britain’s second largest City Council Birmingham passed the Party’s Modern Slavery motion and charter.
• The Party supported Midcounties’ work on seeking support for the childcare sector, especially through the ‘pingdemic’ and in terms of the need for quality guidance relating to staff absences. This work saw digital campaigning as well as questions of Ministers in the House of Commons.
• We launched the Chris Herries Memorial Scheme with 14 party members being paired with their mentors. The scheme later received a large donation from a family member of Chris who wished to support the scheme from funds from Chris’ estate. This will ensure a bright future for the scheme.
• The Party conducted its second ‘new member summer school’, with a range of online sessions being run for newer members across a two-month period.
• We have continued to produce our online ‘co-operation live’ sessions.  Topics have included co-operative new green deal, refugees from Afghanistan amongst many others. We have also continued to support our equality network events, including marking events such as Black History Month and Windrush Day.

In addition to the work the Party did to support the NEC Strategy weekend the Party has continued to focus on its organisational and financial sustainability. This has also included building our Budget for 2022 and forward plan.

We have also:

• Issued membership upsell communications.
• Begun a new stream of work targeted at members who could lapse in 2022 and have recently had direct debits that have failed.
• We have started to develop a ‘New Officer Pipeline’ – this work has seen the party deliver training for potential new officers and conservation sessions. This work will expand over the coming months.
• We have worked on a new data sharing agreement with the Labour Party in the area of disciplinary processes. This was subject of a new rule change at Labour conference, which put this agreement in to the Labour Party rule book.
• The implementation of the shared helpline for cases relating to sexual harassment has progressed with Victim Support to the point of a heads of terms agreement.
• The Labour Party conference saw a second rule change be passed which the Party has worked with the Labour Party on – the reintroduction of Co-op Party representatives on LGCs. Through this rule change the Co-op Party has the possibility of having two seats on LGCs.  Prior to this being inadvertently dropped from the rule book it was one.

Total membership at 30 September 2021 was 12,617.

This reflects ongoing strong recruitment, low arrears and resignations, and better retention – join rates for several months of 2021 have been amongst the highest since modern records.

Total recruitment in January to September was 1,489 (Jan-Sept 2020: 1,527; 2019: 922). Our strategy is delivering strong growth, matching the trend set in 2020. Our monthly average is 165.4 new / renewed members in these nine months, compared to 169.6 in 2020 and 101.8 in 2019.

Total supporter list at 25 October was 69,646. Converting supporters to members is our main recruitment source – this growth has been driven by strong campaign and policy output, and social media advertising.

Membership income at 30 September for 2021 was £329,272 (Sept 2020: £299,525)

Forecast for 2021 is an income of £410,000 (up £42k or 11.4% from 2020).

Our recruitment of members identifying as BAME, with a Disability or as LGBTQI+ continues to increase as a share of total membership and as a result of recent Equalities campaigns, and even more so since 31 May.

See here for details of the NEC. You can contact the NEC at nec@party.coop or by emailing Karen Wilkie, Board Secretary at board@party.coop.