Do mutuals and cooperatives offer a new alternative for public services and the voluntary sector?

It’s great to see that everyone’s talking about alternative models of public services, including mutuals and cooperatives.  But amongst the buzz it is vital that we learn from the experience of organisations that are already doing this work.

Both Labour and the Conservatives have recently been keen to set out their stall on shared ownership and control.  Cabinet Office Minister Tessa Jowell spoke in December about mutualism in public services, saying it “helps to deliver the accountability, individual empowerment, and community responsibility that the public both wants and needs”.  From the other side, shadow chancellor George Osborne said this week that under their plans public sector workers, “would be able to take ownership of their own enterprise and run it as a not-for-profit social enterprise or co-operative”.  Politicians are interested in these models to offer new ways to meet public needs.

Ownership, involvement and innovation

This is something that we’re also interested in here at NCVO.  Community ownership and involvement are key parts of our vision of the Good Society.  As Stuart Etherington said in September, it is part of “an increasing view that altruism not self interest is what should motivate us”.  Innovation in this field will play a key part in future sustainability of voluntary and community organisations.

Where it comes to alternative models of public service provision, many of our members are already out there, doing this kind of work.  This includes user-led service providers, such as those in the disabilities sector.  These organisations know that there’s more to it than government just saying – there you are, take the money and do it differently. 

Learning from experience

Commissioning and contracting are rapidly evolving areas of work and there are many pitfalls for provider organisations, whether they are charities, social enterprises or cooperatives.  It is vital to understand the full value of what the voluntary and community sector can provide, and to reflect this in contracting arrangements, something that our Public Service Delivery Network has consistently called for.  The NHS has been a test bed for many policy ideas, and a recent Guardian article covers in detail the knotty issues in the cooperative approach to reform in health.

Despite the tricky issues, one of the widely acknowledged strengths of mutual and cooperative models is the stability of these organisational models.  This is a point stressed by CooperativesUK, whose aim is to work towards an increasingly successful and sustainable cooperative economy.  But the viability of this sector will be heavily affected by the decisions made by policy-makers and commissioners.

Whether you believe these ideas are new or old, it is great that people are talking about the roles of state and civil society.  Hopefully the solutions we implement will take into account the sustainability of the services and the providers.