Enterprise Hubs, Societies, Newsletter and AGM

Cooperatives-SW (which I’m currently helping to direct) has been approved for Co-operative Enterprise Hub funding for 2009. Well done to Viv and the rest of the hard-working team who have been doing miracles for co-ops in this region with relatively little funding for so long now. (But if you’ve got a pot of money to donate, let me know, please.)

Industrial and Provident Societies are the traditional form for registering UK Co-operatives, but there are a number of things in its 1960s law which aren’t reflected in general company law (which was mostly updated since the mid-1980s). For starters, IPSes are registered with the FSA, whose website isn’t as good as Companies-House WebCHeck for Limited companies. Cooperatives-UK are pressing for the law to be modernised.

C-UK sent us a status update (which I can’t find on their website yet) this week. Amongst other things, they’re seeking to introduce provisions to allow online registration and filing for IPSes. I’ve asked them to take the opportunity to press for similar provisions for LLP Co-ops, or directing Companies House to act on any such existing provisions. At the moment, it seems unfair that LLPs are excluded from online filing, so paying double for routine administrative filings and relying on the increasingly dysfunctional Royal Mail.

Finally, the next Cooperatives-SW print/PDF newsletter should be out next week. Hope to see lots of you at the AGM in Plymouth on 23 June!

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