Alpha Communication

The UK’s leading supplier of personalised school uniform, which is employee-owned, is investing in new IT and preparing for growth with the help of loans from Co-operative & Community Finance and the Co-operative Loan Fund.

Sheffield-based School Trends supplies 6,000 schools and well over 1 million school children throughout the UK with personalised school uniforms. The business started in 1988 and grew rapidly, with the founders strongly believing in a participative work culture and in 2004 the company became employee owned.

There are 125 employees mainly based at the company’s office in Westfield near Sheffield. The business is 100% employee-owned. The majority of the shares are held by the employee-benefit trust and all permanent staff also own shares directly. Employees elect representatives to the governing council of the business.

Daran Brown, Managing Director of School Trends, said: “I absolutely believe that employee-ownership brings out the best in our staff. It means that everyone here has a personal investment in doing the best for our customers.”

School Trends also has strong environmental and ethical trading policies and supports local charities, it is an excellent example of a responsible business that combines profits and principles.
Co-operative & Community Finance and the Co-operative Loan Fund supported School Trends in 2013 when it bought the freehold of the premises it was leasing, and so these lenders were the first choice when School Trends needed further finance. The new lending is being used to invest in a greatly improved IT system.

Daran Brown explained: “At the moment we have three separate IT systems which is not ideal. With the loan we are investing in the best one and losing the other two. Ten percent of our customers are already on the new system and in the first quarter of 2017 we expect all of them to be.”

School Trends have also taken the opportunity to consolidate other loans into a more economic package, which will give the company more working capital to manage growth.

Tim Coomer, Business Development Manager at Co-operative & Community Finance, said: “We are pleased to lend to School Trends again. It is a successful employee-owned business with strong principles. It is just the kind of venture that Co-operative & Community Finance and the Co-operative Loan Fund were set up to support.”

A loan from Co-operative & Community Finance is helping an innovative international creative agency to expand and strengthen its co-operative structure.

Small Axe, with offices in London and Colombo (in Sri Lanka), provides creative communications for courageous causes. The name comes from a Jamaican proverb made famous by Bob Marley: “if you are the big tree, we are the small axe”.

Its services include strategy, branding, messaging, campaign films, email marketing, creative content, website design and app development. Its clients are campaigning organisations, social enterprises and not-for-profit organisations. Recent clients include the Green Party, Bite the Ballot and Robin Hood Tax.

Small Axe was set up in December 2011 by Jana Mills, a refugee from Sri Lanka, and Dan Stanley, a community organiser and social psychologist. They shared an ambition to help good causes succeed by improving the way they communicate with their audiences. Jana’s cousin, Nishan Mills, a software architect in Colombo, joined soon after. And so the international communications co-operative was born.

Today there is a team of 12 creatives, organisers and technologists based in London and 13 website and app developers, project managers and technologists based in Colombo.

Founder Dan Stanley said: “Small Axe has grown rapidly over the last two years and we realise that we need to strengthen the co-operative. We have always worked in a co-operative way but many of our employees have not yet formally become members.”

Part of the loan from Co-operative & Community Finance is being used to implement an action plan of co-operative training and development. The remainder will be used for office space, equipment and administrative staff.

Dan Stanley expects Small Axe to continue to grow over the next two years, he said: “We want to grow the work that interests us most. We started out in websites and apps and that will continue, but in recent years the creative work has become much bigger. The new area we are planning to develop is our political and organising work.”

Small Axe recently recruited a new Political Director, Dan Firth, formerly a lead organiser at Citizens UK. He will be leading this new strand of work, as the business unites the best of creative technology and organising techniques in support of its projects.

Ian Rothwell, Investment Manager at Co-operative & Community Finance said: “We are very pleased to help this dynamic, international communications business to grow and become more co-operative.”

weare.thesmallaxe.com

Award-winning, employee-owned care provider Care and Share Associates (CASA) has completed the first phase of its ambitious plan to more than double its turnover in the next five years. Co-operative & Community Finance, The Co-operative Loan Fund and Big Issue Invest are providing finance following an innovative restructuring of the business.

CASA provides domiciliary care in some of the largest metropolitan areas in the north of England, including Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Warrington, Knowsley and North Tyneside. It works closely with local authorities and commissioners to deliver home-based health and social care services to older people, disabled people and those with learning difficulties.

With over 700 employees and it delivers over 16,000 home visits per week to some 1,000 clients. Its bold business plan for the next five years is to grow from £10.5m to £25m turnover, generating profits of £1.5m a year.

CASA started in 2004 with the aim of replicating the success of Sunderland Home Care Associates, the longest running and possibly best known employee-owned care provider. Until 2014 each CASA base – in Manchester, Knowsley, North Tyneside etc – was an independent company operating as part of a franchise.

During 2014 the whole operation was restructured to create a single employee-owned business which started officially on 1 January 2015.

Managing Director Guy Turnbull said: “By combining the franchises into one company we have a much stronger balance sheet, which means that we can bid for larger contracts. The new corporate structure is also more tax efficient and the governance is more transparent, which is essential for an employee-owned business.”

Under the new corporate structure at least 51% of the shares will always be owned by the Employee Ownership Trust but individual workers can also be rewarded with share incentives.

Guy Turnbull said: “We are convinced that employee-ownership makes for better business. Research by the King’s Fund shows that more engaged employees provide a higher standard of care. Also we’ve found in CASA we have lower than average staff turnover which provides better continuity for our clients.”

CASA and Guy himself were recently recognised in the Great British Care Awards: Marie Hedley and Karl Lamb won regional awards in the category of Home Care Worker and Guy won the Outstanding Contribution to Social Care Award for the North East region. They will go through to the national finals in spring 2016.

Ian Rothwell of Co-operative & Community Finance said: “CASA is an innovative and professional business operating in a difficult and changing market. They have borrowed from us on several occasions to help their business adapt and grow.”