How do UK worker co-operatives compare to the rest of the world

I seem to be doing a lot of internationally focused blogs at the moment, if anyone wants me to cover a domestic worker co-operative issue, or write one themselves, get in touch.

Ever year Co-operatives UK sends data on worker co-operatives to CECOP (our European Federation). This helps CECOP lobby the EU on behalf of the movement and collectively show our strength. For those interested, here's a summary the information. 

Something to reflect on (if your that way inclined) are the terms social co-operative and artisan co-operative, which are terms we don't use in the UK.  I have loosely defined them below and keep meaning to write a blog on them both. 

None of the figures include social co-operatives as we just don't classify co-operatives in that way. For artisan co-operatives, I've looked for co-operatives of self-employed people that come together in a co-operative to produce stuff/deliver a service. These are usually referred to as consortia co-operatives in the UK but that term also includes consortia of very large buying groups like www.bako.co.uk , agricultural machinery rings etc, so its really isn't comparable.

The 90 collected below are an attempt to record these types of co-operatives and are predominantly: taxi firms like www.dialacab.co.uk (sadly not a member, if anyone can make an introduction...), arts and crafts consortia like: www.woolclip.com and professionals like: www.theverypeople.co.uk, www.uhc.org.uk.

Numbers of organisations

As we do not have data on every co-operative in the UK, this will be an underestimate and should only be used as a general guide to the sector (these figures are always changing as we get new data).

	Worker/  social 1 coops	Artisans coops2	TOTAL
Number of enterprises	392	90	482
Number of enterprises being SME’s3	392	89	481
Number of workers (members and non members)	2140	4002	6142
Total number of members of all types e.g. volunteers, investors	634	4657	7291

1 Social co-operatives are multi-stakeholder (predominantly worker/volunteers) that delivers public services (mainly in Italy).

2 Artisan Co-operatives are consortia’s of self employed people who come together predominantly Arts, Crafts, like pottery etc.

3 Define SME as greater than 250 workers or turnover greater than 50 millions €

Size of Co-operative Economy

Worker co-ops in membership of Co-operatives UK = £129m

Worker co-ops in economy = £146m

Artisan/professional co-operatives in membership = £900,000

Artisan/professional co-operatives in economy = £40.9m 

(predominately down to a few very large taxi firms)
Whole co-operative economy = £33.5bn

Lives and Deaths

185 have been creating since 2005, 101 of them members or affiliated to Co-operatives UK. 

33 have closed down over this period (that we know of).

Gender balance of Directors

Male Directors =565
Female Directors = 429 

Industry Sectors 

CECOP uses an International Industrial Classification Systems, so the figures may not be the same as others  figures I might have published in previous posts. I've attached the Spreadsheet, in Google Doc form here. for the juicy details and sub categories.  Again there is a health warning with this data, as it is our interpretation of information we have available.

ISIC & NACE Codes	NACE Description	Total
A	AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHING	13
C	MANUFACTURING	13
E	WATER SUPPLY; SEWERAGE, WASTE MANAGEMENT	6
G	WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE	62
H	TRANSPORTATION AND STORAGE	19
I	ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD SERVICE ACTIVITIES	16
J	INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION	26
M	PROFESSIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES	106
N	ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICE ACTIVITIES	14
P	EDUCATION	33
Q	HUMAN HEALTH AND SOCIAL WORK ACTIVITIES	52
R	ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION	79
S	OTHER SERVICE ACTIVITIES	41

If you have not yet lost he will to live with too many figures, here some tid-bits from the last report from CECOP of how we compare with the rest of Europe:

Number of worker co-operatives in membership of a CECOP member

Country	N° of Co-operatives
Bulgaria	268
Czech Republic	252
Denmark	110
Estonia	3
Finland	70
France	1893
Germany	97
Italy	18151
Malta	28
Poland	340
Portugal	51
Romania	526
Slovakia	90
Spain	25486
UK	170
Total	47535

Industry Sectors (where they have data)

NACE	N° of Co-ops
A AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHING	388
B MINING AND QUARRYING	11
C MANUFACTURING	2452
D ELECTRICITY, GAS, STEAM AND SUPPLY	16
E WATER SUPPLY; SEWERAGE, WASTE MANAGEMENT	167
F CONSTRUCTION	1930
G WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE	995
H TRANSPORTATION AND STORAGE	1409
I ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD SERVICE ACTIVITIES	536
J INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION	872
K FINANCIAL AND INSURANCE ACTIVITIES	26
L REAL ESTATE ACTIVITIES	128
M PROFESSIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES	1966
N ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICE ACTIVITIES	2323
O PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION	18
P EDUCATION	1328
Q HUMAN HEALTH AND SOCIAL WORK ACTIVITIES	3196
R ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION	1340
S OTHER SERVICE ACTIVITIES	1011
T ACTIVITIES OF HOUSEHOLDS	25

I hope you enjoy, if you have any questions, comments please get in touch