Protect in law the co-operative identity and principles, inclusive membership, democratic member control, and the safeguards that keep control with members.

• Reserve the term “co-operative” for bona fide co-operative societies committed to the internationally recognised co-operative principles.
• Require co-operatives to maintain transparent and proportionate membership criteria that do not work to artificially suppress membership.
• Provide statutory clarity on the minimum requirements for democratic governance, at both the primary and secondary/multi-stakeholder level, including a single minimum of three directors for every co-operative.
• Require existing industrial and provident societies to re-register as bona fide co-operatives, within a workable transition.
• Keep a two-step general meeting process before a society can convert to another form or change its fundamental nature.
• Allow independent directors only as a democratically elected as a capped minority with equivalent limits on outside non-user investor members.

Protect the shared capital a co-operative builds up, so it cannot be paid out or lost when the co-operative converts or winds up.

An indivisible reserve

• Define the legal reserve in law as indivisible, aligned with the internationally recognised concept.
• Commit a minimum share of annual surplus to it, with the level set in the society’s own rules.
• Keep the reserve intact on dissolution or conversion, transferable only to another co-operative or a body with a similar purpose.
• Exempt from corporation tax the surpluses a co-operative commits to its indivisible reserve.

An optional asset lock

• An optional statutory asset lock, defined as a non-distributable capital surplus, permanently committing that surplus to a co-operative, social or community purpose.
• Entrenched once adopted, and not amendable by members at a general meeting.

Recognise the full range of co-operative forms in law, from community and housing co-operatives to social, multi-stakeholder and Community Land Trust models.

• • Full provision in law for community, housing, social and multi-stakeholder (solidarity) co-operatives.
  • A statutory definition of Community Land Trusts, with a mandatory statutory asset lock as a condition of designation, and the detailed sector rules left to housing legislation.
  • An optional mission lock, so a co-operative can protect its social and environmental objects from being altered at a general meeting.
  • Provisions for formation of a European Co-operative Society, so that a co-operative based in Ireland can form and operate across the European Union.

Match regulation to the size of the co-operative, fix the audit problem facing small societies, and resource the Registrar adequately to discharge its duties..

• Permit a co-operative society to be registered for any lawful purpose, including regulated activities such as acting as a credit institution or insurance undertaking.
• Statutory “model rules” that let a small society form and register on a comparatively straightforward basis, as a limited liability company can.
• Proportionate audit and compliance for small, start-up and community co-operatives.
• Transitional relief for small societies that have fallen behind on returns because they cannot obtain an audit: a simpler route to bring filings up to date and restore cancelled societies.
• No-cost filing, and free public access to co-operative records held by the Registrar.
• Protect officers’ privacy through a public contact address held at the Registrar.
• A adequately resourced Registrar.

Fair, modern access to capital, on the same proportionate footing as companies, and as co-operatives and mutuals in comparable countries.

• Statutory clarity for the common forms of co-operative capital and how they operate.
• The ability to raise capital from members and investors under proportionate regulation, including member share offers, community share offers and equity crowdfunding.
• A dedicated co-operative capital instrument, permanent and loss-absorbing, that a co-operative can raise without giving up member ownership.
• Reinstate withdrawable share capital for productive purposes.

Recognise the worker co-operative in law, and give employees a clear route to own and run the business they work in.

• Recognise the worker co-operative as a distinct class of co-operative.
• Provide statutory “model rules” so that forming a worker co-operative is comparable to forming a limited liability company.
• Statutory clarity that worker co-operatives can conduct their business through operating subsidiaries, and that employees of a subsidiary trading company can be members on equal terms.
• Ensure the co-operative society legal form is well suited to employee buy-outs under any future employee-ownership frameworks.