Mainstreaming Co-operation Co-operative Models for Local Government

1. Mainstreaming Co-operationCo-operative Models for Local Government Cliff Mills Senior Associate, Mutuo 4th July 2012

2. Reflect … • Rochdale Council’s housing – what has happened? • No longer owned and controlled by the state/local government • Owned by citizens and local communities • No longer within public sector borrowing • Detached from direct political control • “Owned”? • Legally committed to trading for a public/social purpose • RBH constitutionally linked to Council A new form of public ownership

3. “Common Ownership” ‘This declaration of the Labour Party leaves it open to choose from time to time whatever forms of common ownership, from the co-operative store to the nationalised railway and whatever forms of popular administration and control of industry that may in particular cases commend themselves.’ Sidney Webb, The Observer, 21st October 1917

4. The new Public Ownership • Moving beyond “for sale” or “for profit” ownership, and state ownership • A way of owning which seeks the public benefit • How? • Through community ownership by tenants and employees • Through a representative body, containing all key voices, setting the framework • Through a board responsible for delivery, accountable to representative body • Public interest = a proper balancing of the material private or individual interests • Efficiency based on capturing the knowledge and commitment of tenants and employees, working together to get the most out of the money But where does that leave the Council?

5. The new Public Ownership • Has its own democratic system – a challenge to legitimacy of local government? • Taking over functions (service-provision, ownership) – undermining role of local government? • Mutualising services – reducing the significance of local government? • What is left for Councils and Councillors?

6. The nature of the change • Current institutional model • Powerful bodies dispensing services, controlling large budgets, employing lots of people • Common public perceptions: overly bureaucratic; driven by party politics not what’s best; not really responsive or accountable to local people • Individuals as consumers, relatively powerless, increasingly disengaged • A “binary” model • A separation between those in town hall, those out there • Two distinct parties: the Council and “us” • Dominant, unequal relationship

7. The prevalence of “binary” • A long history: Enlightenment, feudal, Roman or older? • Many examples: master-servant; landlord-tenant; employer-employee; capital-labour; business-consumer; commissioner-provider • Basis of hierarchies and power: military, governmental, commercial • Good for clarity, certainty, maintaining law and order • But problematic: • Dominant/oppressive relationship • Tendency to preserve or increase inequality • More focussed on shorter-term, private interests, rather than wider public benefit • Regressive, rather than progressive

8. A more enlightened approach • Co-operative idea is inherently progressive • Collective self-help, response to oppression and lack of access • Acquires strength through coming together (pooling need), not setting apart • Equal access, equal opportunity, counter-acting inequality • Democratic control by members equally, undercutting domination • Independent of other sources of power (wealth, hereditary, by force) • “Pooling need” – the diametric opposite of binary, “oppositionalism”, competition • Seeks to bring people together • Find common solutions, which work for everyone

9. Building on co-operative heritage • 19th Century mutuals – collectives of “consumers” • Self-help initiatives in the face of market failure in access • “Outward looking” securing wider public benefits • (Open membership) • Education and learning • Promotion of co-operative ideas • Socially innovative • BUT generally based on one voice (“univocal”) • Beatrice Webb – “little capitalists” etc. • 20th century heritage

10. Today’s challenges • Today’s “market failures” • Economic system (not just distribution) which is inherently regressive • Institutional failure (big business, government, church) • sustainability • accountability • Collapse of trust, wide-scale disaffection • Today’s self-help response • Not based on me getting access to goods and services at a fair price (i.e. which does not exploit customers) • Based on me getting access to goods and services on a sustainable basis, i.e. • which does not exploit customers, growers and producers, or employees • which has regard to the wider impacts of doing business, on local residents, the local economy, the environment and future generations • rebuilding trust and confidence through engagement and participation (ownership and representative governance)

11. Co-operation today • Championing sustainability as well as participation • Bringing together all relevant voices (not just consumers) • “Multi-vocal” organisations which listen to and balance key interests to discover the public interest • Creating an “us” which is not binary: we are the society, the society is us

12. And the Council? • Provider organisations are focussed on what they are providing • Their members are interested for a variety of reasons; some people not interested at all • Within localities, a need for strategic planning and oversight in the public interest • RBH and others (e.g. health, social care, police, education) cannot work in isolation: they NEED the Council as glue • The public interest needs to be protected locally where services are delivered by private providers • Some direct service provision by the Council likely to remain • Citizens need a local council to be their voice in the planning, oversight and delivery of all local services

13. The Council’s role The Council: • Strategic co-ordinator, linker, broker, facilitator • Monitor, guardian and champion of public interest • To be (the voice of) the local community Councillors • Embedded, in touch with and fully attentive to their communities, their needs and their aspirations • In the Council chamber, to BE the community • In the community, to be the accumulator of information to carry forward into the Council chamber

14. Our role as individuals • “… recast the relationship between people and the state” • Move beyond a binary, unequal relationship • We need • to be actors, not just passive consumers or employees • to be engaged as influencers in the things we are interested in and feel strongly about • to be keen to elect councillors who will improve our local communities through their powers of listening and persuasion • to BE the Council, for it to be us, not something set apart from us

15. Conclusions • RBH represents a new approach to public ownership, replacing Councils as owners in particular areas • It is based on a multi-vocal approach, a development from the uni-vocal approach of traditional co-operation • It engages individuals as actors rather than passive consumers • It relies on the Council playing a new role, as strategic co-ordinator, and the local protector of the public interest • The role of Councillors will become more significant as intermediaries and brokers • The Council becomes an extension of ourselves, not something set apart from us

16. c.mills@mutuo.co.uk