What Does The Future Hold for Lambeths Co-operative Council?
Steve Reed, leader of Lambeth council, sets out what the cooperative council of the future will look like and how it can meet the demands of changing times. This feature is published in partnership with Progress. Lambeth has just launched a major public consultation on our plans to become Britain’s first cooperative council. The proposals are built on Labour’s experience of running the council for the past four years and they outline how we will protect frontline services and make them more responsive to local need. That means handing more power to communities and service users and reshaping the relationship between citizens and public services in favour of ordinary people. Labour’s proposals were trailed in the Guardian back in February, months before David Cameron launched his ‘Big Society’ proposals. There are some superficial similarities, but there is a fundamental difference at the heart of the two models. The Tories want to roll back the state, while Labour wants to change the r
