Co-ops at the North Somerset Initiative

On Wednesday, I went to a meeting of the Business Initiative for North Somerset for Cooperatives-SW (our regional cooperative cooperative). It was the first time anyone from the cooperative and mutual sector was present.

Conference <h3>Bank of England</h3>

The first speaker was Geoff Harding from the Bank of England, who talked through topics in their agents’ summary and related news.

One interesting graph showed a steep rise in the percentage of household income being saved. Answers to questions suggested that more of that goes to mutuals and building societies, but they find it difficult to be competitive while the banks are keen to increase their balances.

There was mention of “employment hoarding” – businesses short-time working, redeploying or shutting down temporarily to keep trained workers under contract, rather than make them redundant and rehire later.

People from both the Federation of Small Businesses and the Hoteliers’ Association made strong comments about the banks claiming to government that they are willing to lend, but still offering deeply unattractive depth-of-recession rates and terms. If the regional agents get details of such cases, they pass them to the central bank. <h3>South West Regional Development Agency</h3>

The second main speaker was Ann O’Driscoll, who covers business development for the “West of England” (what many people call CUBA – Councils that Used to Be Avon). She introduced their four strategic priorities:-

1. Low Carbon Economy – apparenly our region has good wind, wave and solar experience. However, Vestas were mentioned and I know that when Vestas closed the UK’s only wind turbine blade factories in August 2009, the RDAs were criticised for not acting against “the subsidy-chasing, socially irresponsible conduct of Vestas” and related companies continue to worry workers. If Vestas is one of the praised companies, I wonder whether we’re attracting sustainable work to the region.

   On a related note, North Somerset Council and NS Enterprise Agency are organising a Climate Change forum on 1st April, but it’s at Cadbury House Hotel, which is awkward to get to except by car: no footpath to the door, a mile-and-a-half walk along a busy road from a train station, bad roads for biking, wheelbending speedhumps on the drive, I can’t remember if there is bicycle parking and its website doesn’t say…

2. Successful Businesses – SWRDA funds our rather poor Business Link service. Does someone in the South West have some good news about Business Link? If so, please leave a comment on this article.

3. Prosperous Places – intervention in areas like south Bristol or central Weston.

4. United Approach – co-ordinating with other regional groups.

The main activities introduced were:

• Area Action Forces – eight of these facilitate the closure of branches by large private-sector employers, gathering the various government departments and agencies together to help find the workers other jobs or fill out social security application forms. It probably helps, but I was surprised there wasn’t any example of a regionally-owned “phoenix” company arising from a branch closure to continue the service was mentioned.
• Talent Retention Project – finding new employment for unemployed specialists in their own sector in this region. New startups were mentioned briefly. Not one mention of helping those specialists to co-own existing businesses.

The questions were fascinating, except for mine. The best one was probably about the forthcoming election and the Conservatives pledge to shut down the RDAs and Business Links. The answer was that much of the work will still need to be done somehow, so it’s more a question of who will do it, rather than what the name on the door says. So I don’t think axing RDAs is going to achieve more than shuffling people between organisations.

When allowed to ask a question, I got too excited and ranted a bit about how the Co-operative Group’s co-operative enterprise hub is doing work that Business Link should have been funding, but the RDA doesn’t understand social enterprise and treats it as a ghetto service. I’ll try to take that up in a more coherent form later. <h3>Overview</h3>

I think Cooperatives-SW were invited to the North Somerset Initiative largely because of pressure from software.coop for co-ops to be represented better in the Local Strategic Partnership, which has treated us badly. NSI holds one of the three business places on the partnership board, with the other two being held by NSEA and Bristol International Airport.

I think it’s a bit off that a private company and an enterprise agency are both represented by other groups and also have their own board seats while co-ops don’t even have a collective seat, so that pressure for a representative organisation for co-operatives and mutuals to have a board place (in line with national government guidance) should continue, useful though the NSI meetings seem to be.

The other thing which would really help is some funding for co-operative business development specialists to work in North Somerset at strategic tasks like this, instead of it being left to ordinary workers from other sectors. I don’t know where that funding will come from and until then, I’ll continue to try my best. We need to make sure that local strategy at least does no harm to the sector.

Syndicated 2010-03-19 09:14:38 from Software Cooperative News

SPI March 2010

The meeting agenda is already posted for tonight’s (Wednesday’s) SPI board IRC meeting which will be at 2000 UTC.

It’s another pretty lean meeting, with only some minutes to approve, so why not come along and let the board know what you think they should be doing to promote free and open source software?

Syndicated 2010-03-10 06:50:30 from Software Cooperative News

Paypal and Ethical Business

DoctorMO is calling Paypal the Pocketing Police after this “Paypal [...] decided we were scammers and took our money” comment by Daniel Stone during the Xorg foundation election discussions.

Our co-op has avoided Paypal for a number of years for two reasons:

1. Paypal didn’t recognise UK company registration “numbers” that contain letters (like ours) for years after they first occurred, so we couldn’t register as a seller;
2. the terms and conditions are very unequal, there are shedloads of complaints like paypalsucks.com and I don’t believe they’re all fiction.

We’ve not boycotted it yet because there are two of our current suppliers who are very expensive for us to pay by international bank transfer, accept Paypal and don’t offer much alternative. I think I’ll go ask them again. At least one of them should be sympathetic to Xorg.

Syndicated 2010-03-03 06:58:11 from Software Cooperative News

The Co-operative Development Review: a call for evidence

Cooperatives-UK Chief Executive Ed Mayo has asked Robin Murray to undertake a brief review of the potential for expansion of co-operation in the UK, and the infrastructure necessary to support it.

The review is intentionally wide ranging. It covers areas for innovation in methods of co-operation and its promotion, and ways in which the movement connects, reflects and supports itself in the era of the web. The aim is to prepare a report with recommendations and a plan for discussion during Co-operative Fortnight in June.

Anyone with ideas about the challenges and opportunities you feel the movement is facing, and what can be done about them – please email evidence to robinmurray AT blueyonder.co.uk by Friday March 5th for a first summary of the issues on Tuesday March 9th.

Syndicated 2010-03-02 07:47:01 from Software Cooperative News

Fairtrade Fortnight 2010: Fairtrade and IT

We’re in the middle of Fairtrade Fortnight and it seems like the most advertised one yet, with Cadbury’s adverts joining the push of this year’s “big swap” theme: replace some of the stuff you’d usually buy with Fairtrade alternatives.

For IT workers, this is easier said than done. It’s difficult enough to find more sustainably-produced products, let alone fairtrade ones. Our co-op has failed to achieve full marks on “Prioritise and promote Fairtrade and other ethical and sustainable initiatives” so far and I don’t expect us to reach 100% any time soon.

Just last Friday, Greenpeace International reported on more toxic electrical equipment, which shows that IT’s environmental sustainability is far from a solved problem. Meanwhile, it doesn’t seem like the fairness side is being addressed much yet. There are no fairtrade electrical product standards yet. Isn’t there demand for fairer as well as greener production?

Anyway, if you’re looking for faitrade products this fortnight, you could try some fairtrade chocolate from the New Internationalist worker co-op. Food is further along, which is a good thing because it’s pretty fundamental to life…

Syndicated 2010-03-01 07:28:32 from Software Cooperative News