UK Government consultation: co-operative business support

The UK Government has launched a call for evidence about how the government can continue to support co-operative and non-financial mutual businesses to start, grow and sustain, as well as existing businesses to transition into a co-operative or mutual model.

With the growth of community owned businesses increasing across rural and island Scotland, this is a particularly important opportunity to contribute to future policy development at a national scale. Community owned businesses can provide local employment opportunities, capacity building across the community and allow young people within the community to build skills and learning.

This call for evidence, published by the Department for Business and Trade, seeks input from organisations, stakeholders and individuals on how Government can better support co-operatives and non-financial mutual businesses to start, grow, sustain and transition into co-operative or mutual models.

The Government is looking for community business’ evidence and insight on:

• The experiences of co-operatives and non-financial mutuals in starting up, growing and sustaining their organisations.
• Barriers or challenges these organisations face compared with other business types.
• How business support, access to finance, public awareness, and policy frameworks could be improved to unlock greater sector growth.
• Opportunities for existing businesses to transition into co-operative or mutual models.

This call provides a great opportunity for our rural and island community business organisations to have their views heard and to influence policy making that could shape future support for them and the community business sector across the UK.

The lived experiences of community organisations will inform evidence, and recommendations so the input from Scottish rural and island community groups will be particularly important to ensure their unique circumstances are understood, ensuring a broad and representative set of voices from across the sector.

To see a great example of a community owned business check out our video about the Red Lion in Culross, a community owned pub at the heart of the community.