In 2017’s manifesto, the Labour Party manifesto pledged to double the co-operative sector:

"In government, Labour would give more people a stake – and a say – in our economy by doubling the size of the co-operative sector and introducing a “right to own,” making employees the buyer of first refusal when the company they work for is up for sale. We will act to ‘insource’ our public and local council services as preferred providers.”

To aid the delivery of this commitment, the Co-operative Party commissioned an independent report and now wants to take this work forward. In order to do this, the Party has convened an ‘Implementation Group’ made up of members of the co-operative movement to work with both the Labour and the Co-operative Party to develop recommendations on growing the co-operative sector.

This work relies on the experience and knowledge of the wider co-operative movement – both to build momentum and support behind the goal of growing the sector as well as providing the practical expertise on this can be achieved. In particular, feedback from the co-operative movement on the below will form a basis for the Implementation Group’s discussions and thinking on the following:

• The need for co-operatives to achieve greater investment in order to develop and grow, given the inherent challenges that exist for co-operatives to obtain capital within the legal model.
• Consideration on the full spectrum of investment opportunities for the sector including how the sector can be facilitated to pool its existing resources to enable sector growth.
• Consideration of particular sectors to target for priority growth. This should include an overview of existing types of projects which can be used as models, as well as specific examples of projects which could be developed further.
• The importance of training and education in ensuring the necessary skills and culture exist for co-operative development and sector growth.
• Road testing the recommendations set out in the recent independent NEF report, ‘Co-operatives Unleashed’

Please consider the following questions, and send us your thoughts by Wednesday 9th January 2019.