Why and how we became a mutual
Graham Barnes
MyCSP Ltd
Why become a mutual?
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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?
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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’
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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
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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…
Budget deficit
reduces available
investment funding
Civil Service resizing has resulted in
a long term increase
in demand for
services
Changing pensions landscape including
Hutton review, 2012, Compensation
scheme changes etc
My CSP
Greater appetite to engage the
private sector to accelerate the
pace of change
Opportunity to align
with new policy
initiatives such as
“mutualisation”
From a “long list” of potential strategies and delivery models we settled
on three broad options
Models & Strategies
Gov Department
Outsource
Joint
Venture
Co-Source
Mutual
Trading Fund
Co-Operative
GovCo
Options Considered
 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
Once we decided what, we…
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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
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