Becoming a co-operative borough is about everybody doing their bit and everybody benefitting.
Our Corporate Plan outlines how we will achieve our co-operative ambition for the borough. It outlines how the Council contributes to achieving the vision and outcomes in the Oldham Plan as well as the priority areas of focus and delivery for the organisation.
Oldham has been a Co-operative Council since 2011 – and since then we’ve made great strides working together to improve our borough.
The Co-operative Council approach starts with all of us all recognising our shared problems or ambitions. We then sit down together to look at what each of us needs to do in order to get a better result that benefits the borough.
In everything that we do – from delivering everyday services to helping people improve their lives or helping the private sector to grow our local economy – there's a simple way of explaining how it works, what is required of each participant and what the outcome is.
Co-operative Values
Oldham is committed to developing a co-operative future; one where residents, partners and staff work together to improve the borough. We want all members of the community to play an active part in building our co-operative borough. This means everybody doing their bit. To help make this ambition a reality we have developed Co-operative Values. We will encourage our staff, citizens and partners to adopt these values in everything they do.
Fairtrade in Oldham
Fairtrade provides a way for consumers to show their commitment to a fairer world. It is about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world.
Living Wage
Implementing the Living Wage is a cornerstone of how the council models being a Fair Employer and we been a living wage employer since April 2015.
Employee volunteering
To help employees to ‘do their bit’ for the borough we have an employee volunteering scheme. This enables every employee to use three days of work time to give something back in the borough. The scheme has been very successful so far and both employees and the organisations they have supported have benefitted from taking part in the scheme.
Oldham Food Bank
We have staff who organise collections for the food bank at various times of the year, encouraging and enabling staff to help those in need across the borough.
Mayor’s fundraising
Throughout the mayoral year fundraising events are held and all the proceeds from these occasions are donated to charitable causes.
For this year’s charities that the Mayor is supporting please visit
Action Oldham Fund - ’start a ripple of change – give locally'
We continue to support, through volunteering and fundraising, the Action Oldham Fund, which is a charitable fund that supports good causes across the borough, so they can make a real difference to local lives.
You can be sure your money makes a real difference to the lives of Oldham residents.
Co-operative Councils Innovation Network
Oldham is proud to be a member of the Co-operative Councils' Innovation Network (CCIN), which we also currently manage.
The CCIN is a national network of local authorities who are committed to finding better ways of working for, and with, their local communities.
The network provides member councils with the opportunity to share best practice and learn from each other’s practical experiences to translate cutting-edge policy thinking into hands-on practice right across the country.