The NEC of the Co-operative Party is elected every three years, with the current members serving from June 2017-20. The NEC is also the Board of the Society, Co-operative Party Ltd. It normally meets quarterly, with the June meeting being the AGM.

The most recent meeting of the NEC took place on 25 and 25 November.  This was the annual Strategy Weekend, where the NEC discussed the Party’s updated Strategic Plan for 2019-21 and the priorities and budget for the coming year.

Please do share this information with your members in meetings but remember that this is an internal Party briefing and is not to be shared outside of the Party, with the press or on social media.

The two policy topics for 2019 were discussed by the NEC Policy Sub Committee and agreed.  These will be circulated early in the new year to give members and local parties plenty of time to debate and respond.

Changes to several of the Party’s rules were endorsed at Annual Conference.  These will be incorporated into a new Rule Book in 2019, which the NEC aims to make clearer and simpler.

The Party continues to be one of the fastest growing parties in the UK, but we have ambitious targets to grow further over the coming years.  These are the current membership figures in summary:

The Party had 11,659 members at 31 October 2018 (2017: 10,923), an increase of 6.7%

1,195 new members joined in January-October 2018 (2017: 1,126).  Many joined in September and October following new email and social media marketing campaigns and events including Labour Party Conference. All nations and regions have seen net gains, with the biggest in North West England (9.6%); Yorkshire & the Humber (8.3%); and London (8.2%); the smallest gains are in Scotland (3.3%); and Eastern England (3.3%).

34.2% are female (up from 33.9%), with 38.4% of new members female

9.6% are 30 or under (up from 9.2%), with 18.2% of new members 30 or under

If you or your members have ideas for recruitment, particularly to increase diversity, please get in touch.

Jim McMahon MP, Chair of the Co-operative Parliamentary Group.  This included work on Brexit and the People’s, budget debate, violence against shop workers and forthcoming fishing and agriculture Bills.  Co-operative MPs also led a debate in Parliament on Modern Slavery.  Future work will include consumer protection in the energy markets and in funeral planning.

The NEC discussed feedback from Annual Conference and the motion from Cambridge and South & West Essex Party, which was remitted to the NEC.

Feedback from delegates and visitors on the content of conference this year was very positive, with engaging debates and a good balance between platform speakers and time given to delegates from the floor.

There were some concerns expressed about access in the hotel.  The Party arranged a site visit with a member in a wheelchair in advance of the Conference and built ramps to enable all delegates to access all sessions without assistance.  Unfortunately, these ramps did cause difficulty for some other delegates.  This will not be an issue in 2019 in a more modern hotel.

The NEC considered the motion remitted from Annual Conference:

Conference agrees that one session of conference should be open for motions on any topic not covered in the main policy documents, that conference should be balloted on their order of importance, and that as many as possible of them be debated in the time allocated. 

Staff will work with the Conference Arrangements Committee to trial a process for Annual Conference 2019.   The NEC recommended that Parties be invited to propose topics in advance of Annual Conference, which should relevant to the Party’s remit but not covered by the two policy areas for that year.  These could be balloted on the first day of conference and debated on the final day.

The NEC also considered a proposal to separate the AGM from Annual Conference, leaving more time in the Annual Conference programme for policy debates and bringing the AGM closer to the end of the year to which the Annual Report and Accounts relate.  This will be trialled in 2020.

Annual Conference & AGM 2019 will be on 11-13 October in Glasgow.

The General Secretary gave a full report to the NEC on recent work towards the Party’s strategic objectives.

During the Month of Action against Modern Slavery, the milestone of 50 councils signing or implementing the Charter was reached. These councils cover 13 million people and other councils continue to be added.  A summary of some of the media coverage can be found here

The first Labour and Co-operative local council candidate for May 2019 has already been selected and the panel for the next Welsh Assembly elections will open before the end of the year.

The NEC agreed the budget for 2019, with increased support to national and regional events and to the members’ networks.

The NEC also functions as the Board of the registered Society, Co-operative Party Ltd, and considers issues relating to corporate governance as well as policy.  At this meeting, the NEC reviewed how we implement Co-op UKs Code of Governance, which will be revised in 2019.

The NEC formally adopted an NEC Code of Conduct, which will be signed by all current and future NEC members.