Co-op is set to vote on raft of reforms

MEMBERS of the Co-op will vote today on reforms to modernise the troubled mutual and secure its future.

In one of the most important days in the group’s 170-year history, more than 100 members are expected to attend a special general meeting at the headquarters in Manchester.

Reforms drawn up in the wake of the mutual’s £2.5bn loss last year and the near collapse of the Co-op Bank under disgraced former chairman Reverend Paul Flowers ( pictured) will be put to the ballot.

These include introducing a slimmed down board of 11 directors with ‘high standards of competence’ and relevant experience.

Other key proposals include more powers for the Co-op’s eight million ordinary members, under a new policy of ‘one man one vote’.

Former City minister Lord Myners, who drafted the proposals, complained that some members of the board were so financially illiterate they did not know the difference between debit and credit.

The changes will require the backing of a two-thirds majority.

Representative’s from the Co-op’s seven regions, which hold around 80pc of the vote, and the mutual’s 127 independent co-operative societies, which have the remainder, are expected to attend the meeting today. This will be supervised by Coop Group chair Ursula Lidbetter.

But this vote is unlikely to go quite as smoothly as an emergency vote held in May on the key principles behind the reforms, which secured unanimous backing. A petition to reject the reforms themselves, launched by Cooperative Business Consultants, has been signed by more than 400 people. It says: ‘The proposal that the board should be composed in its majority of “independent” directors is directly opposed to the co-operative principle of democratic member control.’