After 107 years, the UK’s Co-operative College is moving to an ‘unstaffed model’ this summer, marking the end of an era that saw thousands of co-operators pass through its doors. The early curricula were widespread and eclectic, but in recent years, a lack of core or government funding, coupled with a number of risky projects and a challenging operating environment, took their toll, and remaining colleagues are expected to leave the organisation on 31 July.
From August, the College will continue as a grant-giving body and online resource and be available to students and stakeholders in the co-op and wider movement to continue to inspire future generations. Proposals are now moving forward to preserve the College’s legacy for future researchers and educators.
There were hopes that the organisation might forge a formal partnership with national co-operative apex Co-operatives UK – but these have reluctantly had to be shelved. The College acknowledges the decision will come as a disappointment to many after months of detailed discussion. However, the verdict from College CEO Jacqui Thomasen is that “painful as it has been, we are in the right place”.
Board-level talks with Co-operatives UK about them taking over the College’s training and education function began a year ago, following a crunch meeting around new operating models. As College chair Chris Jardine explains, every possible option was explored, including winding up and redistributing the remaining charitable resources, as well as mergers with other education providers.
“We wanted a strategic partnership, short of a merger, to keep the College entity intact,” he says, “and it was at that point we instigated talks with Co-operatives UK as the preferred option. They were really supportive and keen to try and see how we could make it work in a way that respected both of our requirements.
“In July 2025, we contracted via a heads of terms which formalised our intention to progress to a service level agreement over a three-year period. But ultimately, as we worked through that, it became apparent that the cost savings the College needed to make couldn’t be achieved through the SLA.”
The final decision from the College’s board of trustees was that the amount required to underwrite the agreement wasn’t viable.
“We would like to acknowledge the high-quality support provided by colleagues at Co-operatives UK in delivering this commissioned work,” says Jardine. “Unfortunately, in the circumstances, we could not progress with the SLA, but we look forward to co-operating with them and other societies under the new model.”
The announcement comes after many years of financial challenges for the College, and ambitious proposals to turn things around with varying degrees of success. The closure of its residential base at Stanford Hall in 2001 sparked much controversy but was seen as essential to survival. In 2015, it became a CIO, an independent charity accountable to members and governed by trustees.
“Since then, we have never made a surplus,” says Jardine, “but have drawn down on charitable funds to support our output. Our endowment fund at the start was £4m, but by 2025 that was down to £350,000, and that doesn’t include cost of living and inflation.”
Recent attempts to reverse its fortunes included plans for a co-op university, a major restructure in 2020 and a significant downsizing that saw the College move to four days a week. Curiously, the Covid-19 pandemic “steadied the ship” for a while as everything moved to online delivery – but that masked the long-term issues regarding financial viability.
Another recent blow was the unexpected end of the College’s plans to work in partnership with the University of Dundee to deliver a post-graduate co-op leadership qualification.
“Unfortunately, they hit their own financial crisis in December 2024 when we were imminently due to launch. At that point they terminated all partnerships. From then, it was unrecoverable.”
The College does have a future – but the model will be radically different, says Jardine. “We don’t regret exploring all options, and ultimately, we learnt a lot, and it has steered us towards our new direction. Something I keep coming back to is that nostalgia doesn’t pay the bills. I know there’s a lot of love and memories of the College of old, but we need to adapt and survive in the 21st century.”
Under the new proposals, the College will focus on a grant-giving programme, whilst maintaining an online co-operative learning legacy and educational partnerships with individuals and organisations.
“This still offers the opportunity for societies and individuals to make a difference to advance co-op education,” Jardine says. “We are calling on people to work together to achieve that.”
The Open University has been chosen at their learning legacy partner and Jardine continues, “Our free self-led learning courses will be published under Creative Commons Licensing, which fulfils an important part of our charitable mission. We are managed by a board of trustees working in a voluntary capacity and will be supported by outsourced functions”.
The College hopes to recruit more trustees in the months to come.
“We already have an associate model where we work with specialists in education or co-operation, and we will continue to do that,” adds Jardine. “If someone needs a specialist to deliver, we hope to be able to provide those associates directly through the New Era partnership, comprising Co-ops UK, the Heritage Trust and Co-op News, all working together.”
There will be some revenue generation from the learning legacy and working on case studies for higher education, so some core costs will be recovered with an increase in organisational support from individuals, organisations and educational and retail co-ops.
“The guiding light was that we wanted to try and maintain the public benefit as far as possible and show we can still have inherent value and continue to deliver our charitable object,” says Jardine. “There are some specific skill sets we are trying to tap into and look at how collectively, as educators, we can work more effectively together to avoid duplication and enable everyone to thrive.”
Jardine says this move is not about the demise of the College, but about “looking at the external environment and recognising that our mission has never been greater – while accepting that to advance co-op education we need to do things differently”.
