Mutuals Public Register

Glossary

The register contains details of societies registered (or previously registered) under:

• Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (previously the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965)
• Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act (Northern Ireland) 1969
• Credit Unions Act 1979
• The Credit Unions (Northern Ireland) Order 1985
• Friendly Societies Act 1974
• Friendly Societies Act 1992
• Building Societies Act 1986

Information about documents

Pre-2001 for societies deregistered before 2001, the file will be with The National Archive.

2001-2013 – for societies still registered between 2001 and September 2013 documents were digitised on request. There may be information held on paper that is not available online. To find out if other documents are available, and to request their digitisation, ‘Request Digitisation’.

Post 2013 – from 18 September 2013 all documents were ‘digital by default’. Any document created after this date will be on the Register already.

On 1 April 2018 we received the digital files from the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland, on the transfer of the registration function to the FCA.

Standard Industrial Classification

We display Standard Industrial Classifications (SIC) to classify the economic activity of societies. Where the society has specified their SIC, we have displayed that. Where the society has not provided a SIC, we have selected one. We use the Office for National Statisticsclassification framework, and apply the same condensed list used by Companies House.

Reporting Classifications

These classifications are used in the downloadable extract of the register. Societies are mapped to the most specific classification.

Statistical Condition

Societies in Great Britain registered under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (before 1 August 2014), or in Northern Ireland under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 (before 6 April 2018), are described on the register as ‘Registered Societies’.

Registered societies generally need to meet one of two ‘conditions for registration’, being that they are either (i) a ‘bona fide co-operative’ (‘Co-operative’) or (ii) ‘conducting business for the benefit of the community’ (‘Community benefit’).

The ‘Statistical Condition’ column records whether they are more closely aligned to the either the ‘Co-operative’ or ‘Community benefit’ condition. This data is provided for statistical and analytical purposes only. It is best used at an aggregated level as many societies were registered before the conditions for registration existed. The classifications have been produced by us based on the documents – such as the registered rules, and initial application form, of a society. Our classification is based on chapters 4 and 5 of our guidance; https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/RFCCBS/

This data was introduced on 5 December 2025.

Co-operative Type

We have recorded co-operatives as one of four types based on the main interest members have in their co-operative. We have used the International Labour Organization guidelines on the statistical classification of co-operatives.

The following descriptions are quoted or adapted from Measuring Cooperatives, International Labour Organization (2025) (pages 15-16):

• Consumer or user co-operatives. Members are purchasing or using a good or service provided by that co-operative. This includes financial services, retail, social clubs, and a broad range of other co-operatives.
• Worker co-operatives. Members are ‘individual workers…whose jobs are directly assured through their co-operative’.
• Producer co-operatives. Members are producing some kind of activity as enterprises (whether as legally constituted entities, or as a sole trader). This includes many agricultural co-operatives but also taxi driver co-operatives, where the drivers are using infrastructure of the co-operative (eg radio services) to deliver their productive activity, and those providing professional services, such as managing agents owned by actors.
• Multi-stakeholder co-operatives. Where two or more of the above have ‘significant involvement in the activity of the co-operative’, with those relationships being reflected in the governance of the co-operative (eg a co-operative with a category of ‘worker member’ and ‘user member’ in their rules, such as in a co-operative providing care services, with service users and staff as categories of member). Some co-operatives have additional classes of member in their rules, such as ‘supporter members’ or ‘non-user investor members’. Where those are the only additional category of member, we have not classified them as a multi-stakeholder co-operative because those members will generally not have significant involvement in the activity of the co-operative.

This data was introduced on 5 December 2025, and is designed for use at an aggregated level, for statistical and analytical purposes only.

System Codes

Some of the mutual society numbers are followed by a suffix. Societies registered in Northern Ireland under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 (before 6 April 2018) or The Credit Unions (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 have a prefix.