Nick Eyre, the former secretary of the Co-op group, believes the company must overhaul its governance structure after management last year made unregulated decisions resulting in a notorious £2.5 billion loss.
The Co-op risks repeating its errors if it green-lights a proposal to allow a board sub-committee (made up of management and its appointees) to select the firm's directors:
"If management and an existing board take on this power to hire and fire this ceases to be a co-operative and instead becomes little more than a self-perpetuating, management-led, oligarchy," said Eyre. "This is certainly not the answer and if it comes to pass then all who cherish the co-operative and mutual model in a diverse economy might as well pack up and go home."
Speaking at an event organised by the National Federation of Progressive Cooperators, Eyre stated that giving members a vote on directors would allow them to hold the board to account.
Eyre left the Co-op in 2007 because he said he did not want to work with Peter Marks, who became chief executive that year. Eyre criticised Marks's decisions, including the purchases of Somerfield and Britannia building society, which he thought were behind the group's misfortune.
© 2014 European Supermarket Magazine by Peter Donnelly
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