Mutual societies registration function: 2020-21

The Mutuals Public Register[1] provides important information for societies, their members and the public. As well as listing the societies registered, it also holds documents for each society, such as annual returns, accounts and rule amendments.

Since launching the revised Mutuals Public Register last year, we have developed it further. The changes have focused on improving the accessibility of the site for users with differing needs and improvements to the overall performance.

This year we uploaded a further 56,000 documents to the register.

The Mutuals Society Portal[2] provides a straightforward and efficient way for mutuals to send us their annual returns and other information. This year the number of registered users has increased by just under a third to 6,612.

We have continued to monitor the impact of Covid-19 on mutual societies. We have:

• maintained our advice on application forms[3], making it easier for societies to submit applications to us electronically by allowing electronic signatures and encouraging submission through the Portal[2] or by email
• set out our expectations on general meetings[4], and highlighted the use of virtual meetings where permitted
• confirmed the circumstances where we would not consider it in the public interest to act on a legislative breach

Our flexibility on annual return submissions[5] which are due to us as the registering authority under mutuals legislation has been used and well received. We know that Covid-19 has put a great deal of pressure on societies who produce accounts and we will not act where annual returns and accounts due for submission by 31 October 2021 are delayed by 3 months or less.

During the year, societies used and benefitted from the provisions of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020, making it easier for societies to hold virtual meetings where their rules otherwise prevented it. These provisions expired by 30 March 2021.

The last quarter of this period we’ve held 26 meetings with people representing and working with mutual societies. These meetings have been a valuable opportunity to share ideas and understand what we can do to help societies in our role as registering authority.

In 2020 we issued a society with notice of our intention to cancel its registration under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (Condition D, at Section 5(5)(c)). The society sought to meet the condition for registration of being a bona fide co-operative society. It appeared to us that the society was instead carrying on business with the object of making profits mainly to pay interest on share capital invested in the society.

This is expressly incompatible with co-operative status under s2(3) of the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. It appeared to us that members of the society were essentially investors who did not participate in the business of the society.

Where notice of proposed cancellation is issued, a society has the option of following the statutory process for conversion to a company. This process was undertaken by the society throughout 2020. We registered the special resolution in December 2020, with the conversion and cancellation finalising in the first half of April 2021.