UNISON, the UK’s largest union, today welcomed a House of Commons report* into mutuals and co-operatives which highlights a dangerous lack of evidence for the government’s drive to promote the use of them in the public sector.
The report identifies that there are still very few examples of mutuals and co-ops in the public sector, particularly in local government. This exposes the government’s many claims about the benefits of mutuals and co-ops as worryingly unproven.
UNISON has long been warning that there are dangers lurking in the plans, and sounding alarm bells about the lack of evidence for the benefits that it would bring for local people and essential services.
Greater employee and service user involvement is the way to provide services which meet the needs of communities, but that this can be done co-operatively in-house, without the need to set up a new entity, fragment services and put staff terms and conditions at risk, said the union.
Heather Wakefield, UNISON head of local government, said:
“The government has been pushing the mutual and co-ops agenda hard as a new way of delivering local services. The dangerous lack of evidence for the benefits is deeply worrying. Their claims about the benefits are little more than warm words.
“At a time of slashed budgets, local authorities are desperately searching for ways to continue to deliver quality services. But we believe the principles of co-operation can happen within existing services – setting up complex and untested new structures in the current climate is a playing a dangerous game with vital services which people rely on and our members’ jobs.
“The report makes a number of recommendations to Government and calls on them to ‘take action to provide support’ if it wants more mutuals and co-ops to develop. Without this, the report is clear that this will not happen.
“In this sense, the report is a test – if the Government believes in genuine co-ops and mutuals as a means of improving public services, it will act. If not, the rhetoric which has surrounded this agenda will be consigned to history, along with other failed policy fads such as the Big Society.”
Notes
*Mutual and Co-operative approaches to delivering local services, a report by the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee.
