Jon Bond

Small Island, Big Ideas

  • Why Co-operatives Still Matter, And Why This Week’s Meetings Prove It

    Why Co-operatives Still Matter, And Why This Week’s Meetings Prove It

    There is a moment at every co-operative annual meeting that you don’t get at a shareholder AGM. It’s the moment when an ordinary member – not an analyst, nor an institutional investor, nor a board appointee – stands up and asks a question that the leadership actually has to answer.

    This week, the Channel Islands Co-operative Society holds its Annual General Meetings – Tuesday in Guernsey and Wednesday in Jersey, and with it, elections for one director per island.

    I sit on the CI Co-op board as a non-executive director and Chairman, so I have a particular interest in both the process and the principle. But I want to use this moment to say something broader about why co-operatives deserve more attention and more credit than they typically get.

    What a Co-operative Actually Is

    It sounds simple, and the simplicity is the point. A co-operative is an organisation owned and governed by its members – the people who use it, work for it, or both. Profit, where it exists, serves the membership and the mission rather than external shareholders. Decisions are made through democratic structures, not concentrated in the hands of those with the largest financial stake.

    That model is older than most modern corporations. The Rochdale Pioneers established the principles in 18441. And yet in a world that has spent 180 years being told that shareholder primacy is the only serious model for running an organisation, the co-operative continues to thrive – quietly, durably, and often in places where it matters most.

    There are over three million co-operatives worldwide, with more than a billion members. They employ 280 million people2. The largest consumer co-operatives turn over billions (The 300 largest cooperatives and mutuals generate USD 2.79 trillion in turnover). The model is not a historical curiosity, it is a living, functioning alternative – and in many communities, the only serious one.

    The Seven Principles

    The International Co-operative Alliance defines seven principles that guide co-operative organisations globally3. They are worth spelling out, because they are more radical than they sound.

    Voluntary and open membership. Co-operatives are open to anyone who can use their services and is willing to accept the responsibilities of membership. No discrimination, no exclusivity.
    Democratic member control. Members govern. They elect representatives, set policy, and have a genuine voice in how the organisation is run. One member, one vote — not one share, one vote.

    Member economic participation. Members contribute to and democratically control the capital of the co-operative. Surpluses are allocated to members in proportion to their transactions, not their financial stake.

    Autonomy and independence. Co-operatives are self-governing. Where they enter into agreements with external bodies – including governments – they do so on terms that preserve their democratic control.

    Education, training and information. Co-operatives invest in the knowledge and capability of their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees.

    Co-operation among co-operatives. The movement is not purely competitive. Co-operatives actively work together – locally, nationally, and internationally. Though this is done within the legislative restrictions.

    Concern for community. Co-operatives work for the sustainable development of their communities. Not as a marketing strategy. As a founding commitment.

    Read that list and ask yourself how many of those principles are embedded in the governance of the organisations that shape most of our economic lives.

    Member Participation — The Thing That Makes It Real

    Of all these principles, the one that co-operatives live or die by is democratic member control.

    Participation is the engine. Without it, a co-operative’s democratic structures become formalities. The AGM becomes a rubber stamp. Elections go uncontested. Decisions that should belong to the membership get made, in practice, by a small group of people the membership barely knows.

    This is not a hypothetical risk. It is a pattern that has played out in co-operatives around the world — not through bad faith, but through the entirely human tendency to let processes atrophy when they feel comfortable and stable.

    The antidote is genuine engagement. Members who turn up. Members who vote. Members who stand for election. Members who ask questions that require real answers.

    That is harder to sustain than it sounds. Life is busy. The connection between casting a vote for a co-operative director and the quality of your weekly shop is not immediately obvious.

    And yet it is real — because the people in those governance roles make decisions that shape the organisation, its investment, its values, and its relationship with the community it serves.

    This Week: CI Co-op Annual Meeting

    Which brings me to Tuesday and Wednesday.

    The Channel Islands Co-operative Society annual members meeting sits at the heart of how the CI Co-op governs itself. This week it does so on both islands – Guernsey and Jersey – with elections for one director in each.

    These are not ceremonial positions. Co-op directors are responsible for the strategic oversight of an organisation that is genuinely woven into daily island life. The shops, fuel, pharmacy, funeral, employment, charitable giving and partnerships with local community groups – CI Co-op is not simply a retailer. It is embedded in the islands – social and economic – in a way that a supermarket owned by a distant holding company simply is not.

    The director elections are the moment when that ownership becomes tangible. When the abstract principle of member governance becomes a real choice made by real people about who they trust to steward an organisation that serves their community. When the board and executive come alongside members for open and honest dialogue.

    What is so encouraging is that there are a large number of candidates in each island – seven in Guernsey and 11 in Jersey.

    If you are a CI Co-op member, you have a vote. That vote is not a formality. It is the thing that distinguishes this organisation from every other place you could spend your money.

    Why This Model Matters for the Channel Islands

    Guernsey and Jersey are a community of 170,000. At this scale, the abstract becomes real very quickly. The CI Co-op has a membership of over 128,000. That’s 75% of the entire population of the Channel Islands.

    When a large organisation in the islands makes a decision – about investment, employment, its relationship with the community – it is felt. Not as a statistic, but as a tangible impact on you or someone you know.

    The co-operative model is unusually well suited to environments where scale is small and relationships are dense. The accountability it builds – through membership, elections, democratic governance – is not a constraint on good decision-making. It is a condition for it.

    I have sat in CI Co-op board meetings and felt the difference that community accountability makes to the quality of deliberation and care for the community. You are not deciding for abstract shareholders in a spreadsheet. You are deciding for people who shop with you, who work for you, and who live alongside you. That changes the conversation.

    A Note on Standing for Election

    If you are a CI Co-op member and you have ever thought about standing for the board – this week is a reminder that the path is open.

    Co-operative governance needs people with a range of backgrounds and perspectives. It needs people who care about the organisation and its community, who are willing to invest time in understanding how it works, and who will ask honest questions in the boardroom.

    The skills needed aren’t particularly unusual. Commercial judgment, community awareness, a commitment to the organisation’s values and a willingness to be genuinely independent when the situation requires it.

    If that sounds like you, in any future cycle, I’d encourage you to explore it seriously.

    Co-operatives Are Not Nostalgic. They Are Necessary

    There is a temptation to frame co-operatives as a charming historical alternative, the kind of thing that works in theory but can’t compete with the efficiency of shareholder-driven capitalism.

    The evidence doesn’t support that framing. Co-operatives have survived depressions, wars, and repeated predictions of their irrelevance. They have done so because they solve a problem that shareholder-driven organisations structurally cannot: they align the interests of the people who run the organisation with the people the organisation is supposed to serve.

    That is not a minor advantage. In a world increasingly concerned with who benefits from economic activity and who doesn’t, it is a foundational one.

    The CI Co-op annual meeting this week is a small, local, practical expression of a very large idea. One member, one vote. Governance that belongs to the people it serves. An organisation accountable to its community because it is owned by its community.

    I think that’s worth turning up for.

    Guernsey meeting begins at 6.30 pm at St Pierre Park on Tuesday 19th May;
    Jersey meeting begins at 6.30 pm at Radisson Blu on Wednesday 20th May.

    The CI Co-op Annual General Meeting takes place this Tuesday and Wednesday. If you are a member, check your correspondence for details of how to participate and how to cast your vote in the director elections.
    Jon Bond is a non-executive director of the Channel Islands Co-operative Society and a director of Sark Shipping. He runs Evans Bond, an accounting and advisory firm based in Guernsey and is principal of Melius Consulting Limited. He writes at jonbond.biz    .
    The views expressed here are his own.

    1. In 1844 a group of 28 artisans working in the cotton mills in Rochdale established the first modern co-operative business, the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society https://ica.coop/en/rochdale-pioneers ↩︎
    2. https://ica.coop/en/cooperatives/facts-and-figures ↩︎
    3. https://ica.coop/en/cooperatives/cooperative-identity-values-principles ↩︎

  • The States Meet This Week, and the P&R Election Is the One to Watch

    The States Meet This Week, and the P&R Election Is the One to Watch

    The States of Deliberation sit Wednesday at the Royal Court House, convening at 9:30am for what is, on paper, a routine Ordinary Meeting. There are trust law amendments, immigration regulations, a Police Complaints Commission appointment, and the usual scheduling business. Routine enough.

    But there is nothing routine about the item sitting at the top of the agenda. And given where Guernsey finds itself right now, it deserves more attention than a standard by-election to fill a committee seat normally attracts.

    The vacancy: why it matters

    The States are being asked to elect a sitting Member to serve as a member of the Policy & Resources Committee, filling the unexpired term of Deputy Gavin St Pier, who has resigned from that office,l.

    That is not a minor appointment. P&R is the closest thing Guernsey’s government has to a cabinet – the committee that sets fiscal policy, holds the public finances, and steers the island’s strategic direction. Deputy St Pier was not a peripheral figure on that committee. His departure creates a genuine gap at the heart of Guernsey’s executive machinery.

    The context makes it more significant still. This vacancy is being filled in the shadow of the GSTplus debate – the most politically charged fiscal conversation this island has had in years. Whoever takes this seat will sit at the table where those decisions are made and contested. Indeed, as Deputy St Pier was lead on this topic, the new member of P&R could significantly influence the debate.

    Reading into the amendments

    What makes this week’s P&R election genuinely interesting is that three separate Motions to Vary have been tabled before the vote even happens. Three sets of Deputies, unhappy with the standard election procedure, have moved to change the rules, for this election only, before the ballot takes place.

    It’s worth understanding what each one is actually asking for, because together they reveal something important about the mood in the chamber.

    Motion to Vary 1 — Deputies Inder and Dorrity

    This motion asks the Presiding Officer to allow Members, irrespective of the number of candidates, to question the candidates before voting takes place, with each questioner limited to 30 seconds and each candidate permitted up to one minute to respond per question. The session would run for 15 minutes multiplied by the number of candidates. 

    In plain terms: Deputies Inder and Dorrity want scrutiny before the vote. They want candidates on record, answering questions about P&R policy, before their colleagues cast a ballot. That’s a reasonable ask, and it’s not a novel one, but the fact that it has to be tabled as a procedural variation tells you that the standard process provides for none of it.

    Motion to Vary 2 — Deputies Gabriel and Dorrity

    Motion to Vary 2 is structurally identical to the first, with one difference: the questioning session would run for 20 minutes per candidate rather than 15. 

    Deputies Gabriel and Dorrity are backing the scrutiny principle but pushing for more time, perhaps reflecting a view that 15 minutes per candidate isn’t sufficient for a role as consequential as this one, particularly given the fiscal questions currently in play.

    Motion to Vary 3 — Deputies Helyar and Collins

    This one is the most significant, and the most pointed.

    Motion to Vary 3 asks that the election be carried out by recorded ballot — meaning the vote of each Member would be recorded, with the name of each Member and the candidate they voted for included in the Official Report (Hansard). 

    That is a demand for full transparency. The normal procedure for elections in the States is a secret ballot. Deputies Helyar and Collins are asking for it to be conducted in public, on the record, in Hansard, permanently.

    In a GSTplus environment where questions about who supports what fiscal position and who sits on P&R are not abstract, this is a politically loaded ask. It is asking Deputies to be publicly accountable for who they put into one of the key seats in island government.

    Whether the States will agree to it is another matter. But the fact that it has been tabled at all is a signal worth noting.

    Why the procedure matters as much as the outcome

    It would be easy to view these three amendments as procedural noise – the usual parliamentary fussiness around process. I don’t read them that way.

    Three separate motions to change how this election is conducted, all tabled for the same vote, suggest that a significant number of Deputies are uncomfortable with the idea of this particular seat being filled quietly, without scrutiny, by a process that gives the public and their fellow Members no visibility into what candidates actually think about the issues P&R will have to navigate.

    That discomfort is legitimate. P&R is not a technical committee. It is a political one, and elections to it should, arguably, reflect that.

    What else is on the agenda

    Beyond the P&R election, this week’s meeting includes trust law amendments from the Committee for Economic Development, changes to the Register of Contact Details Law from P&R, and a schedule for future States business. There are also several elections: a member for the Committee for Employment & Social Security, three Police Complaints Commissioners, and a member for the Ladies’ College Board of Governors.

    The Health & Social Care and Housing committee presidents are also scheduled to make general update statements – worth watching given the ongoing pressures in both areas.

    My view

    I’ll be direct. The three amendments tabled for today’s P&R election are not parliamentary games. They are Deputies saying, in procedural language, that this appointment deserves more accountability than a standard internal election provides and doing so in a context where the island is having a serious conversation about its fiscal future.

    The risk of Motion to Vary 3 is that it will encourage politically motivated voting in the place of voting in line with the best outcome for the islands. The States have long been unable to make decisions which are unpopular, but necessary for the future wellbeing of the Islands and its people.

    Whether any of the motions pass, and who ultimately fills the seat, will tell us something about where the States actually are on transparency and on fiscal governance right now.

    That’s worth paying attention to. I’ll be watching.

    The full agenda for today’s States meeting is available at parliament.gg. The P&R election proposition is P.2026/36.

  • If GST is Coming to Guernsey – Can we Learn from Others?

    If GST is Coming to Guernsey – Can we Learn from Others?

    Given the heat this debate is currently getting (Press report on Chamber response to Social Security Reform as part of GST, Bailiwick Express on Suggested Income Tax rise backed by CGi), I thought I’d reflect on the topic. This is not a post about whether GST is good or bad, it’s a post about whether Guernsey is going to be honest with itself about what’s coming, why it’s coming, and what we need to get right.

    If we’re not careful, we’re going to repeat mistakes that our neighbours made seventeen years ago.

    The Fiscal Reality We Keep Avoiding

    Guernsey has a structural deficit that, depending on how you measure it, is now approaching £100 million a year (according to the policy letter in November 2025). Let that land for a moment.

    This isn’t a temporary dip. It’s not a post-pandemic blip. It’s a gap between what we spend on public services and welfare, and what we raise in tax, that has been building for years while successive States committees warned about it, published reports on it, and then kicked the can down the road. Despite the evident squeeze, the States have been spending more on the day to day and continue to vote through capital projects at great cost.

    In 2024, 54% of total government revenues (including underlying entities revenue1 – 79% of headline revenue) were through personal income tax and social security (2024 States of Guernsey Accounts). That’s an extraordinarily narrow base for an island of our complexity. It means our finances are fragile. In practice it also means wealthy people with low declared income contribute less than those earning income from working. It means we can’t fund the hospital, schools, and infrastructure that people rightly expect without either raising income tax, which has its own consequences, or broadening how we collect revenue.

    Let alone the impending democratic time bomb that the island will need to deal with.

    A goods and services tax, at its core, is about broadening the base. That’s not a political slogan. It’s an economic reality.

    What Jersey Did – and What Actually Happened

    Jersey introduced GST in 2008 at 3%, having concluded there was a £40-45 million revenue shortfall that couldn’t be closed any other way. Sound familiar?

    To be fair to Jersey, they tried to cushion it. They raised income tax allowances, increased Income Support payments, and introduced a Community Costs Bonus for lower-income households. They did the socially conscious version of the introduction, at least on paper.

    But here’s what followed.

    Within three years, despite an election campaign where the then Treasury minister gave what he described as a “categoric assurance” that he would not bring proposals to raise GST, the rate went up to 5% in 2011 because the structural deficit hadn’t gone away. Jersey then endured over a decade of economic stagnation. By 2015, an austerity package cut £10 million from support for the most financially vulnerable in the island — the very people GST had hit hardest in the first place.

    A Jerseyman writing in the Guernsey Press put it plainly a few years ago2: if he had to sum up Jersey’s experience with GST in one word, it would be failure. Not because consumption taxes don’t work — they work all over the world — but because Jersey used GST to paper over a structural problem without addressing spending, and without being honest with the public about what was coming next.

    The lesson isn’t “don’t do GST.” The lesson is: don’t introduce a tax, promise it will fix everything, promise the rate will never change, and then be surprised when it doesn’t fix everything and you need to raise the rate.

    What’s on the Table for Guernsey

    The proposal currently in front of the States is known as GST-plus – and it’s more complex than just a new tax on your shopping.

    The full package includes:

    A 5% GST on most goods and services – modelled closely on Jersey’s system. If food is zero-rated, the rate would need to be 6% to raise the same revenue.

    Social security reforms – most people on low and middle incomes would pay less in contributions, because everyone gets a new allowance before contributions kick in. The rate on income above that allowance rises to compensate. However, the burden falls on local businesses (more on that to come another day).

    A new 15% income tax band on roughly the first £32,400 of earnings – intended to reduce the tax burden on lower earners as part of the overall redistribution within the package.

    Benefit and pension uprating — the States has committed to increasing pensions and benefits ahead of GST being applied, so recipients don’t face a 12-month wait to be compensated for higher prices. The estimated inflationary impact of GST on the island’s price level is around 3.2%. The RPI inflation rate currently sits at 3.4% for the UK3 – with the Iran conflict it is likely to be even higher, with an additional cost of GST to factor in for 2028 (expected introduction).

    In addition, the social security package which shifts the burden to businesses to the tune of GBP 17 million, may well be inflationary in itself.

    The net additional revenue target is £50 million a year. That’s roughly half of the structural deficit at current estimates, and the deficit is growing. For 2026, the budgeted deficit (before factoring in any investment returns is GBP 78 million)4.

    The earliest GST could be introduced is early 2028, given the systems, legislation, and business preparation required.

    In should be noted that much of the challenge about the above numbers is that the revenue service is so far behind, with inaccurate data, poor systems and an inability to even make repayments. The data behind these proposals has to be questionable, when the primary source of income is collected by a department which continues to be failing.

    The Arguments For and Against

    I work with businesses and individuals across this island every day, so I’ve heard both sides at length.

    The case for GST is genuinely strong. Guernsey is almost unique among comparable jurisdictions in not having a consumption tax. Jersey has one. The Isle of Man has one. The UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia – every developed economy you can name has one. The argument that it would make Guernsey uncompetitive simply doesn’t stack up when our main competitors all have it too.

    A consumption tax also captures what income tax can’t: the spending of people who are asset-wealthy but income-light. Anyone who has done tax planning work knows that high-net-worth individuals can legitimately structure their affairs to show very modest taxable income. GST doesn’t care about that. You spend money on this island, you contribute to its costs.

    The case against is also real. GST is regressive by nature. A family spending a higher proportion of their income on essentials will feel a 5% levy more sharply than someone with money to spare. The proposed compensating measures help, but only if they’re well-designed and properly maintained over time. Jersey’s experience shows they can drift.

    The food question matters enormously. Whether food is zero-rated isn’t a technical footnote – it’s the difference between a tax that hits lower-income households significantly harder and one that is at least somewhat fairer in practice. That decision is still to be made.

    And then there’s the question of trust. Asking islanders to accept a new tax requires confidence that it will be managed responsibly, that the rate won’t creep, and that it genuinely forms part of a coherent long-term fiscal plan rather than a short-term fix. Given that the structural deficit is approaching £100 million and the proposed GST-plus package raises £50 million, that question needs to be answered honestly.

    What I Think We Need to Get Right

    As someone who spends my professional life helping Guernsey businesses and individuals navigate financial decisions, here’s what I think matters:

    Design it properly. The exemption question – especially food – is not something to decide based on political convenience. Get it right from the start, because unpicking it later is much harder. Jersey was told it was too complicated to exempt food. Somehow it wasn’t too complicated to exempt yacht fuel. Complexity in law shouldn’t mean we fail to do the right thing. We’ve experienced a number of years of food inflation, with further inflation to come this year, there is a real argument for essentials to be protected from GST.

    Be honest about the rate. If there is any reasonable scenario under which a 5% rate isn’t sufficient in five years’ time, say so now. Don’t make promises that can’t be kept. The erosion of public trust in Jersey after the 2011 rate rise did lasting damage.

    Address the spending side too. £50 million of new revenue doesn’t close a reported £100 million gap. Any credible plan has to include a serious, accountable commitment to expenditure control alongside the tax reform. We’ve seen too many “savings targets” in States budgets that quietly evaporate. A civil service wage bill that was £318m in 2024 – up from £216m in 2014 (a rise of 45% compared to RPI during the same period of 38%) demonstrates growth beyond simple pay rises.

    Don’t delay indefinitely. The July 2026 debate is already being talked about as a candidate for postponement. Credit to Deputy De Sausmarez indicating it won’t be delayed. (But the reality is the (now former) political lead is embroiled in very public personal issues).

    Every year of delay costs real money and defers decisions that are only going to get harder. Guernsey has been debating this for the better part of a decade. At some point, not deciding is itself a decision, and not a good one.

    The Bottom Line

    Guernsey needs to raise more revenue. The numbers are clear, the structural deficit is real, and the reserves we’ve been drawing on to paper over the gap won’t last forever. Equally there needs to be real savings made by our States. People see waste, and that makes selling the concept of GST challenging.

    The question in front of us isn’t really whether something needs to change. It’s what that change looks like, and whether we have the political maturity to design it well and be honest about it.

    Jersey experienced what happens when you introduce a new tax to solve a structural problem and pretend you’ve fixed something you haven’t. Both islands’ finances are being propped up by financial asset gains which can very quickly evaporate. I’d rather we looked that reality in the eye now than spend the next decade discovering it the hard way.

    Jon Bond is Founder and CEO of Evans Bond Limited, an accountancy and advisory practice in Guernsey. He is also a non-executive chairman of CI Co-op and NED at Sark Shipping. The views expressed here are his own.

    1. This includes Customs Duties, TRP, Document Duty, and notably all States owned entities and services (Electricity, Aurigny, Guernsey Post, Harbour Fees etc) ↩︎
    2. ‘GST has been a failure in Jersey’ (https://guernseypress.com/opinion/2022/12/12/gst-has-been-a-failure-in-jersey) ↩︎
    3. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/march2026 ↩︎
    4. https://www.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=199792&p=0 ↩︎