Nick Clegg has just launched our new data on the growth of employee-owned co-operative business, as part of the Employee Ownership Summit.

Drawing on its annual digest of data, Co-operatives UK’s figures show that the UK employee-owned sector has grown at a rate of 1.1%, compared to 0.7% for the economy at large. As such, the growth rate for employee owned firms is over 50% higher than the economy at large.

The substance of the Summit has been a landmark report by Graeme Nuttall, called Sharing Success. This is full of in-depth analysis and recommendations and it feels like employee ownership has finally arrived as a mainstream business model.