The paper examines the withdrawal of branches from local communities by financial institutions. It assesses whether mutually owned building societies are more adept than the former societies that have converted to public limited companies (plcs), or the high street banks, in serving disadvantaged communities. The paper shows that during the mid-1990s: mutual building societies were more likely than former societies that have converted to plcs to maintain their branch network; mutual societies were less likely than banks to withdraw from socially deprived locations and more likely to open branches in such places; differences between mutual societies and convertors are less marked, but mutual institutions appear less likely than convertors to close branches in deprived communities. Among the remaining mutual building societies there are differences of perspective, with more commercially-minded societies less positive than socially-concerned mutuals about the need to maintain or even expand branches in disadvantaged areas. key words mutuality de-mutualisation building societies branch networks communities Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Claremont Bridge, Claremont Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU revised manuscript
The demutualisation of British building societies The paper examines the demutualisation of British building societies, the trend during the 1990s for these mutual financial institutions, run on behalf of their members and without external shareholders, to convert to public limited companies (plcs). It also explores the policy implications of the decision of the New Labour government, despite its strong roots in the cooperative and mutual social movements (Yeo, 2001), to ignore the erosion of the mutual business sector (Treasury Select Committee, 1999a; 1999b; 1999c). The paper is based on an extensive interview survey of senior building society management and a wider study of retail financial services (see appendix). At the level of political and social values, mutuality is a doctrine that stresses mutual interdependence as the means of promoting collective well-being. Thus, following Halsey, mutuality can be seen as a``sense of common citizenship that leads people not to press too far their claims for personal liberty (in particular the liberty to hold very unequal wealth) and to agree on a certain amount of basic equality of condition among citizens'' (Halsey, 1978öquoted in Birchall, 2001, page 3). As operationalised at the institutional level in building societies, mutuality is a particular form of ownership that eliminates an important stakeholder, the investor-owner, in favour of the customer who becomes the user and joint owner of the business. Mutual ownership provides one means of dealing with the so-called`agency problem' faced by all complex organisations where there are a number of different stakeholders (for example, managers, owners, customers, and workers), and where the issue is which of these will shape the goals of the organisation and the way in which the costs and benefits are shared out. Ideally, in mutuals, where managers (in theory at least) respond to their members, and do not need to meet the demands of a separate group of investors with different priorities, the organisation can more readily espouse political^social forms of mutuality. This is certainly the view of political commentators such as Kellner (1998),
The authors examine the impact of the remote delivery of financial services on the branch network of British building societies. The current phase of branch-network rationalisation in the financial sector in Europe and North America is argued in the academic literature to be the inevitable consequence of the growth of electronic and telemediated forms of delivery of financial services. In the British building society sector, despite some evidence of branch closure as the use of the Internet and telephone call centres in the delivery of financial services has grown, the picture that emerges is of a dynamic branch network that is responding to changing customer demands and new technological possibilities. Face-to-face advice and discussions between customers and trained ‘experts’ remain an important part of the mortgage transaction. In the savings market, where products have become more commodified, telephone call centres and, more recently, the Internet have become more prominent, but institutions still rely heavily on the branch network to deliver services. The authors suggest that, although there have been changes in the relative importance of different distribution channels as sources of business in the financial sector, it is wrong to view these changes in terms of a simple branch-versus-direct dichotomy. A more complex picture is presented, with most institutions adopting a multichannel approach to the delivery of financial services, and electronic forms of delivery of financial services being developed as an additional delivery channel alongside the branch.
The continuation of the deregulated and restructured environment of the 1980s has produced differential impacts across different farming types and therefore varying results in different rural regions. There has been a major land use change away from traditional sheep farming to dairying on the flats and forestry on the steeper hills. Net farm profit during the 1990s has increased by 180 per cent on dairy farms but by only 97 per cent on sheep and beef farms. In one sense agriculture in New Zealand has become more ‘post‐productivist’ with a reduction in government support, a dramatic reduction in the number of farms, and an increase in farmland converted to urban and recreational uses such as farm tourism and golf course capitalism. But on the other hand New Zealand farmers still remain family rather than corporate, and they are firmly committed to increased production. Other challenges include pressure to deregulate the co‐operative and producer board system, and genetically modified food.
Ten years have now passed since New Zealand began the liberalisation and restructuring of its economy. Basically we have gone from a country where a young person could leave school at fifteen and get a low-skilled job in the freezing works of the electrical assembly industry, to one where few such jobs now exist and there is nearly 10% unemployment. It is now clear that the manufacturing sector has been responsible for about 75% of the net job loss. This paper takes an overview of the research and data now available to document the specifics of the change in manufacturing employment ,focusing on the causes, policies, and the results of the changes, and describes the character of the 'lean, mean' sector which has emerged after the ten years of change.
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