Oral Answers to Questions

Alun Cairns Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

2. What progress he has made on the establishment of public sector mutuals.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

9. What progress he has made on establishing public sector mutuals.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

I announced last week that every Department will put in place “rights to provide” for public sector workers to take over the running of their services. The first wave of 12 pathfinder projects was launched in August this year. Leading organisations in the sector, including Local Partnerships, the Employee Ownership Association and Co-operatives UK, have come together to launch an information and support service for public sector workers interested in mutualisation. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will encourage and support these worker co-operatives.

[Mr Maude]

I do not think that we should be prescriptive about how large or small, or how local or broad, these co-operatives could be. The pathfinders range enormously in size: I think that the smallest has only three potential employees or members, while the largest has 1,100, and it is possible to imagine them being even larger. I hope that groups of public sector workers from right across the sector will consider whether this could be a good route forward for them to take, and we will make it as easy as possible for them to take it.

[Alun Cairns]

What action is the Minister taking to protect the interests of innovative public sector workers who come up with exciting ideas for public sector mutuals, but whose senior management do not support them because it might not be in their personal interest to do so?

[Mr Maude]

It is possible that such a situation could come about, which is why we have encouraged the organisations that I mentioned to set up the information and support service for groups of public sector workers. We will also establish a challenge group, into which this service can feed thoughts and suggestions. If there are concerns that middle and senior managers are obstructing the right of public sector workers to form these co-operatives, I hope that people will feed them directly to us, through the challenge group, so that we can take the appropriate steps.