Good Local Economics
Following the launch of JRF’s housing market taskforce, Mark Stephens explains its vision for a socially sustainable housing market
In the post-war decades the British housing system became increasingly centred around home-ownership. At its peak, home-ownership exceeded 70%. But since 1970 there have been four boom/bust cycles in the housing market.
David Cameron has cited Swedish and Spanish co-operative schools as models for public service mutuals in this country. But a new report from Co-operatives UK finds we have a long way to go to mirror international experiences of public service delivery by co-operatives.
Time to Get Serious: International Lessons for Developing Public Service Mutuals examines the experience of public service delivery by co-operatives in Spain, Italy and Sweden. In each of these countries mutuals have played a key role in the delivery of a range of public services since at least the 1980s. With the UK’s coalition government predicting that one in six public sector employees could be working in new mutual enterprises delivering public services by 2015, the report offers lessons for the emergent sector in the UK.
