Talk:Community interest company

Cannot be an IPS
What is IPS in this context? Looking at IPS I suppose it's an industrial and provident society but I don't want to change it as I'm not 100% sure. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:56, 18 July 2013 (UTC)


 * You're right. They're not companies, although a company can convert to an IPS and vice versa. Since 2014 they have been known as "registered societies", rather than industrial and provident societies. OnceATeacher (talk) 09:40, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Cannot be cooperatives
Can CICs be cooperatives? I think probably not:

1) cooperatives are established for private benefit, not public or community benefit. The FCA will not register a coop as a community benefit society, for example, and 'section of the community' is defined so as to prevent a private group, however large, meeting the test. (CIC Regs 2005, rule 3)


 * Unlike a co-operative society, a community benefit society should not exist to provide benefits contingent upon membership. We therefore do not generally regard co-operatives as meeting the condition for registration as a community benefit society. RFCCBS 5.1.5

2) distributions (such as those a cooperative would want to make) cannot be made by a CIC limited by guarantee at all, and in a CIC limited by shares distributions are in proportion to capital invested (as in a regular company), rather than work done or purchases made (as in a co-op) OnceATeacher (talk) 09:46, 22 October 2023 (UTC)