As part of our Reset and Rebuild campaign, we hosted a virtual roundtable discussion with experts from across Scotland to further explore the role inclusive business models can play in the recovery of the economy following the COVID-19 crisis.
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North East IT provider ITWORX has announced its transition to employee ownership, with 17 staff given a stake in the business.
Established in 2010 by Philip Mowatt and Jill Ross, ITWORX provides tailored IT and communications services and solutions to a range of clients. The firm is headquartered in Aberdeen and has recently expanded into Dundee and Angus, however many of its clients have a global footprint. With 50 years of combined experience, a host of prestigious awards, and a customer retention rate of 98%, ITWORX prides itself on providing an exceptional quality of service. Last year, the firm turned over £2.6m.
As part of our Reset and Rebuild campaign, we have created a video featuring a wide range of experts on inclusive business models, including Darah Zahran, Sarah Deas, Jaye Martin and Carole Leslie, as well as the businesses themselves such as The Community Carrot, Merlin ERD and the John Lewis Partnership, discussing why they think the models can help rebuild the economy post-Covid-19 and help create a stronger, fairer and more democratic economy.
You can watch the video below.
Read more about these inclusive models here and find out about the support available if you’re considering your options: https://bit.ly/3jJVMuf
Head of Co-operative Development Scotland Clare Alexander explores further.
Along with the Scottish Government, we want to help create a more progressive Scottish economy that contributes to increased prosperity and equity, creating better opportunities for everyone and spreading the benefits of economic success more evenly. COVID-19, with its proven ability to target and highlight inequality, has made this a more urgent task.
The final webinar in the Employee Ownership Explained series took place on Wednesday 18 November. This month, the focus was on ‘Making Employee Ownership Work’. Having worked in the employee ownership sector for 16 years and supported over 60 companies move into an employee ownership structure, Carole Leslie of Ownership Associates, talked through the process of moving to an employee-owned structure, and how to achieve the best outcome for the sellers, the employees and the business.
Edinburgh-based contemporary furniture and interior design company Tangram Furnishers Limited has announced its transition to employee ownership.
The company, which operates from a showroom and office in Edinburgh city centre, specialises in the premium end of the market and works with clients, designers and architects to specify and supply contemporary furniture, lighting, blinds and rugs. Its wide variety of projects includes work for both private individuals and commercial sites such as restaurants, offices and museums.
Tangram Furnishers, Jeffrey Street, Edinburgh, 28/10/2020:
Founder Julian Darwell-Stone (seated front) with Sarah Ramsay (managing director, seated front) and the team in their Edinburgh Old Town showroom / office. The team are (rear, from left): Joanne Golden (interior designer), Jenny Milne (interior designer), Tracy Innes (office manager), Melissa Mathieson (interior designer) and Wouter Bossenbroek (correct, (interior designer).
The latest webinar in the Employee Ownership Explained series took place on Wednesday 21 September. This month, the focus was on the role of the legal adviser in employee ownership transactions. Having worked on a number of these transactions himself, Bruce Farquhar of Anderson Strathern gave an insightful overview of the process from a legal adviser’s perspective.
We’ve launched a new campaign to showcase the role inclusive business models can play in supporting the Scottish Government with its aim to create a fairer, stronger and more democratic economy, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic.
To launch the campaign we commissioned a new survey which revealed that half of Scots (48%) agree the pandemic has provided an opportunity to make Scotland’s economy stronger and fairer, with under 35 year olds more even more likely to agree (59%). 64% also said that the pandemic has already made their business more socially responsible.
Scotland’s largest product design company Shore has become employee-owned, with over 30 members of staff given a stake in the business.
The company, which operates from Leith in Edinburgh, designs, engineers and develops class-leading drug delivery products, diagnostic devices and medical training products. It has a huge global customer base with over 80% of its customers in the USA, EU, Switzerland and Japan. Its clients include some of the world’s biggest medical and pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Amgen, Smith & Nephew, Eli Lilly and Ypsomed.
The increasing interest in employee ownership was reinforced on Wednesday 16 September when our webinar attracted over 60 attendees. Dougie Rae, Partner, EQ Accountants has worked on a number of employee ownership transactions and shared his experience in what was agreed to be a tremendously valuable presentation, followed by a lively Q &A session.
The audience was largely advisers, and as the title would suggest, this webinar attracted mostly accountants. More than half described their knowledge of Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs) as basic or non-existent. Half had no direct experience of working on an EOT transaction. Encouragingly, more than 60% of advisers who attended said they were likely or very likely to discuss EOTs with their customers following their attendance at the seminar.
There is growing recognition of the value of community businesses, preserving community assets and generating economic value for their communities. COVID-19 has clearly demonstrated the importance of supporting communities to be innovative and take the step towards generating wealth locally, avoiding the return to normal economics.
In partnership with the Plunkett Foundation, and Community Shares Scotland, Co-operative Development Scotland ran their second Community Business: Making it Easy event this month providing key insight to the realities of establishing a community business and information about the support available.
Civil engineering firm MHB Consultants has become employee-owned, with 40 members of staff given a stake in the business.
Founded by managing director Hendrie Barbour in 2006, MHB Consultants is an engineering design consultancy specialising in bridge design, civil and geotechnical engineering, temporary works and land surveying. Together with fellow directors Fergus Aitchison and Alistair Gray, Hendrie has grown the firm organically to 40 staff, with headquarters in Glasgow and regional offices in Edinburgh and York. Clients include construction firms, transport agencies, local authorities, engineering consultants and private clients throughout the UK.
Earlier this year Co-operative Development Scotland were part of a group that organised and hosted an event called Community Shops & Pubs: Making it Easy. The event was designed to enable communities take action to secure the future of their local shop or pub by helping them to better understand what projects of this nature entail and the support that is available to them. This was a fantastic event was well attended by community groups from across Scotland who were able to access advice on fundraising, governance and community engagement. Attendees also had the opportunity to speak to those already running community businesses and to learn from their experience.
On the day we caught up
with some of the speakers from the event to find out what key bits of advice they would give to community groups considering setting up their own community business.
Gillian Kirton, project manager for Co-operative Development Scotland was there on the day and shares some of the key insights.
As we continue to Celebrate Co-ops Fortnight, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to catch up with Co-operative Development Scotland client, Glasgow Canals Co-op. Anna Young, Project Manager for the organisation, took part in a Q&A with us so we could find out a bit more about the Co-op, its purpose and how they #KeepCooperating.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what attracted you to the role in Glasgow Canals Co-op.
I’m Anna Young. I’m the Project Manager for the Glasgow Canal Co-operative and have been working with the organisation for just over a year. I was attracted to the job because I’m interested in the regeneration of the canal waterway, particularly the role that arts can play in bringing it to life, and I’m keen to support its development and use as an asset for the community. It is an incredibly varied job and I work alongside numerous creative businesses at The Whisky Bond which is located right by the Forth and Clyde Canal near Speirs Wharf.
Over the next two weeks we join our partners in celebrating Co-ops Fortnight. COVID-19 has left us facing extreme challenges for both public health and our economy, but positive lessons are being learned during this crisis, and we all want to harness this new culture of co-operation to change society for the better. Looking at this year’s theme of #KeepCooperating we caught up with Darah Zahran, team leader at Co-operative Development Scotland to get her take on why co-operatives will play a key part in our economic future.
“Among the sector, the benefits of co-operative business models are well known. Built on their values, co-operatives don’t aim to make profit for investors and disconnected shareholders but place at the heart of what they do a set of principles including democracy, concern for community and distribution of wealth to benefit all members. Interest in co-operative and other inclusive business models such as social enterprises has steadily been growing for some time but the arrival of COVID-19 has fast-tracked these models into the spotlight with employees, and employers alike looking for ways to do business better.
As our thoughts turn to what our economy will look like post COVID-19, there are calls not to return to business as usual. There is an opportunity to create a fairer and more democratic alternative to what we’ve had in the past and community wealth building and co-operative business models will play a key role in that.
In our latest blog, we catch up with Suzanne Orchard, our specialist advisor for co-operatives to find out more about community co-operatives and why communities in Scotland are turning to this model to both safeguard vital local assets but also to generate economic benefit for the areas they live in.
Although the effects of COVID-19 are still being felt across the globe, there are good news stories coming through and in our new blog article Clare Alexander, head of Co-operative Development Scotland discusses these in more detail along with what is happening in the employee ownership sector.
I was delighted to hear how well the sector is responding to the COVID-19 crisis with staff from employee-owned Collective Architecture printing PPE parts for the NHS on 3D printers and Alness based employee-owned Aquascot donating fresh fish to vulnerable members of their community as well as sourcing materials used to make PPE for healthcare workers.
As we feel the unprecedented effects of COVID-19, the team at Co-operative Development Scotland want to offer our support in this incredibly difficult time to our clients.
The changes we have seen to every aspect of our lives at the moment may be overwhelming, but we would like to do what we can to help you with the immediate challenges your business or co-operative may be facing by signposting to the network of support available from the government and key partners. Links and details about support available are listed below.
Research carried out by Women’s Enterprise Scotland shows that the contribution made by female-owned businesses to the Scottish economy continues to grow. The GVA of the sector grew from £5bn in 2012 to £8.8bn in 2015 – a 76% increase – while it is now responsible for creating 231k Scottish jobs – up from 153k in 2012.We have also seen a rise in the number of female-fronted businesses in the employee ownership sector, with several of the businesses transitioning to employee ownership being owned or run by women.
Collaborating with other businesses can bring a number of benefits such as enhanced profile, shared resources and knowledge, and the reduction of costs and risk when exploring new markets and innovations. Increasingly, businesses are also coming together to access larger contracts.
