Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office, has announced that Professor Julian Le Grand (pictured), professor of social policy at LSE, will lead a new Mutuals Taskforce, which is to include Patrick Lewis, partners’ counsellor at John Lewis and Peter Holbrook, chief executive of the Social Enterprise Coalition.

The taskforce will support employees working in public services who wish to form mutuals as part of the “right to provide” initiative.

Maude made the announcement in Swindon this week, as he and Charlie Mayfield chairman of John Lewis Partnership, met staff planning to form a Big Society mutual to join up adult and social care services in Swindon.

The minister also announced a second wave of nine mutual pathfinders including Stockport Further Education College and Blackpool's Nurse-led Therapy Unit.

He said ‘public service entrepreneurs’ had the ability to transform public services into a vibrant and innovative sector:

“When you take power away from bureaucrats and give it to people on the ground they often come up with better, more efficient ways of doing things, this is the essence of the Big Society agenda,” he said.  “Public sector professionals have been held back by the limitations of top-down control, their commitment to serving people has been ignored in favour of targets and regimented structures.”

Other experts who will join the Mutuals Taskforce are: Jo Prithcard, joint managing director at Central Surrey Health; Ed Mayo, secretary general at Co-operatives UK; Patrick Burns, executive director at Employee Ownership Association and Peter Marsh, academic director of enterprise at the University of Sheffield.