Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014

Read more about which societies are governed by the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (CCBS Act).

Who is affected  

  • people running or advising societies registered before 1 August 2014 (previously referred to as 'industrial and provident societies')
  • people who want to set up a co-operative society or community benefit society 

What the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 does 

The CCBS Act:

  • replaces the ‘industrial and provident society’ legal form with two new legal forms:
    • co-operative society
    • community benefit society

Industrial and provident societies remain registered but are now deemed 'pre-commencement societies' (generally referred to as 'registered societies').

The CCBS Act also:

  • consolidates previous industrial and provident society legislation including:
    • Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965
    • Friendly and Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1968
    • Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2003

Registered Societies 

Before 1 August 2014, all societies registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965 (or its predecessors) were legally referred to as ‘industrial and provident societies’, whatever they called themselves. From 1 August 2014 they are referred to as ‘registered societies’.

Any new societies registered on or after 1 August are referred to as:

  • a co-operative society, or
  • a community benefit society

There are important distinctions between the two legal forms. Read more in our information note.

What the CCBS Act doesn’t do 

Other than the changes above, the Act consolidates previous legislation with no change of meaning. All legal requirements remain the same.

Societies registered before 1 August 2014 

All societies registered before 1 August 2014 will be referred to as ‘registered societies’.

Letterhead and websites 

You could write: ‘[name of society] is a registered society under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014.’

It would be incorrect to refer to your society as a ‘community benefit society’ or a ‘co-operative society registered under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014’ if your society was registered before 1 August 2014.

Changing your name 

The CCBS Act does not require you to change your name, even if the words ‘industrial and provident society’ appear in your society name.

If your society has ‘co-operative society’ in its name, it must be a bona fide co-operative. Equally, if its name contains the term ‘community benefit society’ it must exist to benefit the community.

If you want to change its name, use:

Registration number 

Your registration number stays the same.

Change your rules 

You do not have to change your rules.

The next time you are making a rule amendment you could consider changing references to ‘Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1965’ and ‘Friendly and Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1968’ to ‘Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014’.

Societies that are not a co-operative society or a community benefit society 

All societies must either:

  • be a ‘bona fide’ co-operative, or
  • exist for the benefit of the community

Societies that feel they don’t meet these conditions of registration could consider converting to a company. We have the power to cancel the registration of any society that does not meet one of the conditions of registration.

All societies will need to determine which condition of registration they think they meet, and stick with it. For instance, if a registered society has determined it will meet the ‘existing for the benefit of the community’ condition for registration, it can’t change that in the future.

Switching types of societies

There is no way to switch between the legal forms without registering a new society.

Societies registering from 1 August 2014 

You must register as either:

  • a co-operative society
  • a community benefit society

You cannot be both. It is not possible to register an industrial and provident society.

There are important distinctions between the two legal forms. Read our information note for more details.

Letterhead and website 

For a co-operative society you could write: ‘[society name] is a Co-operative Society registered under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014.’

For a community benefit society you could write: ‘[society name] is a Community Benefit Society registered under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014’.

Registration number 

Community benefit societies will have a number starting from 7,000.

Co-operative societies will have a number starting from 4,000.

These won’t have the old ‘R’ or ‘RS’ suffixes.