Our reply to Outlandish

What a disappointing email to receive and we’re really sorry to see you go. We are comfortable that we’ve been very honest and open in this approach; talking about it directly in Co-op News for example.  

We invited both co-ops and non-co-ops to bid for this work. Not only was the winning agency the most creative and cost-effective approach for members' money, we have repeatedly seen that our comms do not resonate outside the movement. A task all our members have been asking us to do is communicate more effectively beyond the movement and a fresh pair of eyes was helpful on this occasion.  

Obviously different people and members have different views on how you create a solution, and our rich membership encourages diversity of voice and different opinions. As you know, I personally came to visit you as well as attending one of your network sessions and could see there’s a lot to do. As you say, this has been a long time in the making and again, we’re comfortable that we are addressing this in the long-term and had hoped you would work with us.

I spent Friday afternoon at the Co-op Retail Conference directly challenging the retail CEOs to look at their data and tech propositions and to share these challenges with the co-operative tech networks. This is just one example of how much work we are doing behind the scenes to make this a stronger more joined up movement. We’re planning to run a practical session on this topic at Co-op Congress in June.  

We understand we might not always be directly aligned on everything we do as we represent a broad range of co-ops, but I’m not sure how removing yourself as members and your ability to have a voice is the most effective way to effect change.

Below is a summary of why we don’t share your view that we haven't supported the CoTech community, but we accept that we can always do better and will continue to strive to do so.

We believe you will see us deliver our values through our actions and you will always be welcome to reinstate your membership, if and when you feel the time is right. And of course, will continue to support the great work you are doing in Islington as outlined in your email.

We wanted to address some of your points below:

• We do work with CoTech and collaborate with tech co-ops. In 2020 we consolidated six separate progamme websites into one central website, and instead of going out to open tender we worked directly with CoTech.  
• Because we wanted to support CoTech and the tech co-op movement we awarded this contract to CoTech member Co-op Web as a preferred supplier, and they selected the members they felt were most appropriate for the job. We liaised with Nicholas Greenhill at Co-op Web who recommended we work with CoTech members Agile Collective as web developers and Dot Project on the user research. This piece of work had a value of over £100,000 and was one of the largest digital projects we have undertaken in recent years. We continue to work with Agile Collective on the development of our digital platform, which is hosted by CoTech member WebArchitects.
• For the branding work we pulled together a brief which we sent to co-ops and non co-ops. The proposals were evaluated and we selected Instruct because they submitted the best proposal - they had the best creative ideas, some great examples of similar work and were most competitively priced.  
• As well as creating the branding, they have provided a digital toolkit that will allow our team to create graphics and artwork in house, which is a cost-effective use of members’ money.
• Co-operatives UK operates a ‘members first’ procurement policy looking to encourage trade with our members and to award contracts to members where they match or exceed suppliers in open competition.
• For this particular piece of work, it was helpful that Instruct were outside of the co-op movement as we're trying to appeal to a new audience and wanted a fresh look and feel. But that wasn't the reason they were chosen. They were selected on the strength of their proposal as outlined above.
• This is the first time in many years that we have worked with a non-coop on a large piece of creative work. In recent years we have worked with members including Creative Coop, Media Coop, Trafford Media, Blake House Productions and other creative members. But as explained above, there was a good reason for selecting Instruct to deliver our rebrand.
• A third of UnFound Accelerator Workshops were commissioned to CoTech, and we promote your events via our UnFound newsletters. Although the budget is quite small, we do try to find ways to work with you where possible.

We are sorry that you are leaving membership and we hope to welcome you back one day. We'd be happy to have a chat about any of this.

Rose Marley, CEO
14 March, 2022