Why and how we became a mutual

Graham Barnes

MyCSP Ltd

Why become a mutual? Better services (happier customers and employees), lower

costs, agility, resilience, better governance, greater direct engagement.

Mutuals are innovative organisations at the centre of the Government’s reforms to public services, with the aim of bringing about a transformation in the lives both of those who use and rely upon public services, and of those who provide and work in them;

Mutuals can be directly beneficial for their employees, with higher well-being, lower staff turnover and absenteeism than their competitors, and for the users of the service they provide, offer a higher quality service with superior customer satisfaction; and

Offer the opportunity to address issues in other ways than the traditional binary choice between In-house provision (control) and straight outsourcing (costs)

How do you go about setting one up? First you must decide what you are setting up and

why! MyCSP didn’t start with the answer = a Mutual Joint

Venture – it started with trying to understand the problems/opportunities facing MyCSP and a challenge to improve further and faster than we originally planned.

The ‘Process’ Understand the Problem Define the Outcome Work out what is needed and how to get

there Extensive employee and stakeholder

engagement throughout (Align the influencers and decision makers, and engage directly with employees)

Get on with it as quickly as you can!

The MyCSP Journey Early work established MyCSP as a unified body

supported by greatly simplified governance arrangements

However, the change of Government and deteriorating economic climate have brought major new challenges…

My CSP

Changing pensions landscape including Hutton review, 2012,

Compensation scheme changes etc

Civil Service re-sizing has resulted

in a long term increase in demand for

services

Opportunity to align with new policy

initiatives such as “mutualisation”

Budget deficit reduces available

investment funding

Greater appetite to engage the private sector to accelerate the

pace of change

From a “long list” of potential strategies and delivery models we settled on three broad options

Models & Strategies

GovCo

Joint Venture

Trading Fund

Co-Operative

Mutual

Gov Department

Outsource

Co-Source

A Revised In-House model retaining My CSP as

a Departmental function, contracting a private

sector partner to accelerate transformation and

buying the core software “as a service”

A traditional Outsource of the service letting the

provider complete transformation, deal with

scheme changes and deliver the operational

service

A Partnership approach that positions My CSP

as a commercial joint venture with a private sector

partner providing capital and capability with a

retained interest for Government and a mutual

interest for Members and Employees

Options Considered

Set up a programme team Set up the legal company framework and

implemented the governance arrangements (Board / Exec Team / Employee Partnership Council / Trustee Board)

Launched the competition to secure a private sector partner

Launched the negotiation of a full commercial service contract

Revised the legal company framework to reflect the shift to full mutual joint venture

Once we decided what, we…

The launch of MyCSP Ltd MyCSP Ltd was launched on 1st May 2012, following an 18 month strategic programme. Within the programme the management team of the Cabinet Office function responsible for the administration of Civil Service Pensions worked with a PwC team, appointed as strategic transformation partners.

The programme created the MyCSP Ltd statutory entity, created the mutual aspects of the organisation, and the related employee ownership provisions, built a “stand alone” business and, in parallel, established all of the commercial arrangements with:

• Government as Customer• Government as transferor and owner• Government as supplier• A private sector partner as owner and supplier, and Third party providers