Limited to mutual's

The Government is working to support and enable mutuals, social enterprises and charities to have much greater involvement in the running of public services. There are plans to give public sector workers the right to form employee-owned co-operatives and bid to take over the services they deliver. The intention is to harness the benefits of the mutual model to empower staff to innovate and to improve public service delivery.

This requirement is part of the Public Contract Regulations 2015 transparency agenda (Article 77).  This is primarily used for reporting

What is a mutual?

The term “mutual” is used as an umbrella term for several different ownership models. Mutuals are often described as being characterised by the extent to which members have democratic control of the business and share in its profits, and contrasted with ‘investor controlled’ companies.

However, this is a misleading distinction, because all limited companies operate for the benefit of their members – the shareholders who invest in a company limited by shares, or the guarantors of a company limited by guarantee – and these members are involved in control of the business whether directly, or through scrutiny of the actions of the directors, or simply by buying and selling shares in response to the company’s performance.

The distinguishing characteristic of a mutual is that the organisation is owned by, and run for, the benefit of its members, who are actively and directly involved in the business – whether its employees, suppliers, or the community or consumers it serves, rather than being owned and controlled by outside investors.,