Be informed

So, the members have voted to accept the Mynors recommendations for a new structure that will limit the influence of the regional societies. Hence the CEO of the largest of the regional societies, Ben Reid of the Midcounties, has resigned from the national board (now leaving three vacancies). Despite the criticism of Reid, his own society has recently reported revenues of £1.2bn, suggesting they are doing something right and against the trend in the national society with its £2.5bn loss. Reid received particular criticism by Mynors as a member of the Audit Committee of the Co-operative Bank when the £1.5bn shortfall was revealed.

So, we may ask, what is about to happen? Already it is clear that the local societies will no longer occupy their 30 per cent or so of seats. Instead, the intention is to ‘professionalise’ the Board. The new members will be professional executives and no longer voluntary. This business is so big, goes the argument, it cannot be managed by non-professional co-operators. It is indeed they that got the Co-operative into its fix in the first place (see post 24 April 2014: https://weiterzugehen.net/2014/04/24/what-is-going-on-at-the-co-operative/).

The proposals are, according to the Guardian newspaper, the following:  the creation of a board of directors that is qualified to run a business the size of the Co-op; the creation of a structure that holds the board to account; the principle of one member one vote; and provisions to avoid demutualisation.

The latter is quite interesting. It confirms that asset strippers – or carpet baggers as they were known in the era of building society demutualisations in the 1980s- will not be tolerated and will not gain advantage by such conversion. That is inherently a good thing. One-member-one-vote also has merit, though professional Boards do not always practice such equivalence. Structures clearly should be such that executives are held to account. However, more important is the skills mix on a board to know what that means. (As we have seen from Banking, some executives are ‘infallible’ and charismatic, professional or not.) But being a co-operator should not disqualify one from membership of the Board of the Co-operative.

Image and further details about carpetbagging: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/e-cyclopedia/297982.stm