The Employee Share Ownership Centre
Welcoming Graeme Nuttall’s report on Employee Ownership at the Deputy Prime Minister’s summit on employee ownership on July 4 where the paper was launched, ESOP Centre chairman, Malcolm Hurlston said:
“Graeme has done an excellent job in pinning down some of the barriers to wider employee ownership and has suggested sensible and practical solutions to them.”
The report makes 28 detailed proposals including the introduction of an Institute for Employee Ownership – to promote the concept and act as a central resource repository for the sector – the right to request an employee ownership scheme for workers and the development of an off the shelf tool kit to help companies that are moving towards an employee ownership scheme.
Nick Clegg confirmed that these three proposals would be taken forward with immediate effect at the Government’s Employee Ownership seminar on July 4 2012. BIS has issued a call for evidence to which ESOP Centre members are invited to submit their views.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg said:
Employee-owned firms have lower levels of absenteeism, higher productivity and growth rates and smaller gaps between the pay at the top and ordinary workers. But if we want to make employee ownership a larger slice of our economy we have to make it simpler. That’s why today I have announced that an Institute for Employee Ownership will be established, that there will be new off-the-shelf ‘DIY packs’ for companies to adopt the Employee Ownership business model and that we will issue a call for evidence from business and employees on how a right to request could work. These are important steps to help get employee ownership into the bloodstream of the British economy. We won’t stop there and it won’t happen overnight but, at last, we are on our way.
Clegg spoke alongside Norman Lamb, Employment Relations Minister, and Francis Maude, Cabinet Office Minister, underlining the importance of employee ownership as a policy to the Coalition government.
Norman Lamb said:
Today is a key milestone in the development of what I consider a very important and growing part of the economy. Graeme’s report sets the immediate agenda and we must now respond – both in Government and the stakeholder community – to deliver the work needed to create a successful, flourishing and growing employee owned sector. We have already had a remarkable response from the professional bodies and representative organisations, pledging their commitment to this programme and to developing a new Institute for employee ownership. And I attach particular importance to the ‘Right to Request’ and look forward to working out the detail of this, whilst keeping it light touch and workable for employers.
Malcolm Hurlston added:
“This high-level support will give employee ownership the oxygen it needs to ignite the imagination if British business. Whatever your company looks like, large, small or medium-sized, there’s a model of employee share ownership which will work for you. We are looking forward to the next steps; bringing the wages of capital to workers throughout the UK.”
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Notes to editors: The Employee Share Ownership (ESOP) Centre is an independent not-for-profit membership organisation, established by Malcolm Hurlston in 1988 to inform, lobby and research in the interest of employee share ownership. Its subscription-based membership includes consultants, professional advisers, trustees, banks and companies who have either introduced employee share schemes or intend to do so shortly.
For more information contact: David Poole, UK Director, ESOP Centre,esop@esopcentre.com 0207 239 4971 www.esopcentre.com
Read the full Nuttall report here:
