• Lead Member Co-operative Councils Innovation Network CCIN
  • Participating Members Bassetlaw District Council, Birmingham City Council, Brent Council, Bristol City Council, Burntwood Town Council, Cardiff Council, Cheshire West and Chester Council, Glasgow City Council, Hillingdon Labour and Co-op Group, Hull City Council, Kirklees Council, Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, North Hertfordshire District Council, North Warwickshire Labour Group, Oldham Council, Oxford City Council, Plymouth City Council, Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, South Tyneside Council, Staffordshire Labour and Co-op Group, Stevenage Borough Council, Telford and Wrekin Council
  • Year 2020
  • Status Policy Labs

Principles met

  • We will develop systems that enable citizens to be equal partners in designing and commissioning public services and in determining the use of public resources.
  • We will explore ways for councils to act as a platform for helping the community to contribute to local outcomes, and to re-think the role of councillors as community connectors, brokers and leaders.
  • We will promote community-based approaches to economic development that focus on supporting the creation of jobs, social enterprises and other businesses and providing an environment for co-operative and mutual enterprises to thrive.
  • We will embrace innovation in how we work with local communities to drive positive change.
  • We will capture and ‘expand’ the experience and learning from individual projects and approaches in order to encourage broader application of co-operative principles within individual member Councils and across the Network.
  • In exploring new ways of meeting the priority needs of our communities we will encourage models, such as co-operatives and mutuals, which give greater influence and voice to staff and users. in designing and commissioning public services and in determining the use of public resources.
  • As a membership organisation, we will make this statement of our principles operational by: • Co-operation among members: Our members work together to help each other implement our values, sharing experiences and learning. • Openness of membership: Full, Associate and Affiliate Membership is open to any qualifying Council, organisation or individual who shares our values and is committed to putting them into action. • Co-production of the Network’s work: Members help shape the Network’s work programme and the content of events and written products. • Action-focused: The network is a vehicle for helping councils translate co-operative values and principles into policy and practice. •Membership-based: The network is majority funded by modest membership subscriptions from its member Councils, Associates and Affiliates. •Non-party-political: Members share the belief that working co-operatively within and across communities holds the key to tackling today’s challenges.

About the project

The unprecedented impact of Covid-19 on communities throughout the UK has meant that councils have had to respond in swift and innovative ways. The government’s initial centralised, Whitehall driven response was insufficient in getting support to those people who needed it quickly and effectively. Local government mobilised quickly to fill that gap.

For Co-operative Councils this played to their strengths and brought to the fore the values of community leadership, co-production and social value.

Countless examples are emerging throughout the Network, of councils establishing food distribution hubs, new partnerships with the local VCS and businesses, tackling local shortages of PPE, providing swift hardship support to those that have needed assistance and providing strong local leadership as communities went into lockdown. As recovery efforts get underway Co-operative Councils are looking at opportunities to re-balance local economies, pro-actively tackle climate change and emerge as modern, digital and responsive organisations aligned to the emerging needs of our communities.