This year’s UK Co-operative and Mutual Economy report has been released, showing a sector generating £241.3bn in annual income, supporting 1.7 million jobs and representing 70.4 million memberships.
Compiled by Co-operatives UK, with support from the Co-op Group and input from sector apexes including including the All Together Money, the Association of Financial Mutuals, the Building Societies Association, the Employee Ownership Association and Icmif, the report comes two years after the government pledged to double the co-operative and mutual economy.
“This report shows why that ambition remains exactly that –an ambition, not yet a reality,” writes Co-operatives UK CEO Rose Marley in her forward to the report. “While some major government interventions are in progress, the conditions needed to achieve it are not yet in place and the data, although recognising there is a reporting lag, demonstrates this.”
The sector, adds Marley, needs access to finance, business advice that treats co-operative and mutual ownership as a genuine option, enabling laws, and “a business culture that doesn’t stubbornly default to a single model of ownership”.
“It also means looking beyond the usual binary choice between private ownership and nationalisation when essential infrastructure fails – and recognising the potential for people and communities to own it themselves” she argues. “This report shows, clearly and repeatedly, that those conditions are not yet in place at the scale required.”
Marley highlights a “hard truth” that co-ops account for just 0.14% of UK businesses, and sector growth has been “modest at best – and slower than the wider business population’s own growth”.
She warns: “At the current rate of growth, doubling the number of co-operatives alone would take more than 150 years.”
Growth figures for the year saw the combined income of co-ops and mutuals rise 8% to £241.3bn, and the number of co-ops and mutuals rise 4.9% to 11,113.
The number of people working in the democratic economy rose 3.2% to 1.7 million, and combined membership rose 1.8% to 70.4 million.
Looking specifically at co-ops, the number rose 0.4% to 8,005, while memberships rose 5.5% to 17.6 million.
Related: Credit union conference looks at the doubling agenda
Employee-owned businesses remain one of the strongest-growing parts of the democratic economy: their numbers rose by 22.2%, while combined income grew by 10.9% to £77.4bn.
Building societies’ combined income rose by 35.7%, although the report notes that much of this reflects Nationwide’s acquisition of Virgin Money rather than organic growth. Employment increased strongly (+15.5%), while membership grew more modestly (+1.8%).
Mutual insurers had a harder year, the report finds: income fell by 2.3% and membership by 1%, even as employment rose slightly (+3.2%) – “a reminder that mutual ownership is not a guarantee against the pressures affecting insurers more widely”.
The UK’s co-operative economy grew too, but modestly, the report says. Annual income reached £43.7bn, up 1.5% – a nominal increase – but below the rate of inflation, “so co-operative income in real terms has effectively stood still”.
Growth areas include community pubs, with the number of co-ops in food service, accommodation and pubs sector rising 10.2% to 377.
And the number of energy co-ops increased 8.3% to 340, while the number of agri co-ops rose 3.5% to 533, generating an annual income of £9.2bn.
Related: Great British Energy launches £30m fund for community energy ‘revolution’
There are 766 retail co-ops, with 12.4 million members and an annual income of £29.2bn.
The UK has 2,502 social clubs, 31% of which are more than a century old, with 843,336 members.
There are 352 credit unions, whose annual income rose 6% to £444.5m and memberships rose 0.8% to £2.3 million.
Co-operatives remain over four times more likely than the UK average to be accredited Living Wage employers, the report finds.
And women lead almost a quarter (24%) of the UK’s largest co-operatives – more than two and a half times the FTSE 100’s 9.6%.
Among co-operatives required to report their gender pay gap, the mean gap is 9% – below the UK-wide average of 11.6%.
Retail co-operatives go further still, with 50% of boards chaired by women, 48% of board members women, 40% of CEOs women – against 38.2% across the wider retail sector.
Backing her argument for policy reform, Marley points to support for employee ownership through tax incentives, which helped the sector grow 22% in the year covered by the report.
“That’s what is possible when policy actively makes room for a different kind of ownership, rather than leaving it to chance.”
But she welcomes the £1bn Local Power Plan, the £5bn Pride in Place Programme, Community Right to Buy powers and investment and credit union reform, adding: “If there is an ambition to create good growth in every postcode – and if good growth means resilient businesses that care for their communities, educate people and provide good jobs – then the co-operative movement has ready-made solutions across the economy.
“The government really now needs to be bold enough to power it up.”
