the movement which (when the public saw a tangible benefit to their own lives) would provide a competitive advantage to the Co-op which would further its commercial success – a virtuous cycle. Unlike Gaitskell Commission's 1958 report the recommendations of the report, notably the major update to "The Co-operative brand" and the re-launch of the membership dividend scheme, were largely adopted by the co-operative movement including The Co-operative Group. These changes to the business are largely credited with the successes in profitability and the achievement in social goals which improved in the years after the Co-operative Commission report. As a part of the CWS-CRS merger, new governance arrangements were designed with the 'independent societies' becoming part owners of the new Group and their representatives were elected to the group's national board. The largest change, however, was the much stronger representation for the individual members of the retailing operation with a string of regional boards and area committees designed to facilitate a clear democracy and representation on a local and national level. The composite nature of the Co-op as both a primary and a secondary co-operative led to the business having both individual members and corporate members (independent co-operative societies) which had to be included in any democratic structure. This led to a governance arrangement which was complicated and not understood by many individual members and which led to relatively few members becoming democratically engaged with the business. During 2007 the then chief executive Martin Beaumont was critical of the lack of commercial expertise on the board, foreshadowing the conclusions drawn from later Myners review into the near failure of the business during 2013 which was (in part) due to an unfit governance arrangement. In 2014 the governance arrangements were completely redesigned to reflect the recommendations of the Myners review – for more information see the governance section. Establishing the "Co-operative difference" Though the modernisation of the business was most noticeable after the 1997 takeover attempt, this is not to say that modernisation of the CWS had not been under way for some time. Since 1993 the CRTG had been working to switch the role of the CWS from "selling to" to "buying for" co-operative societies as a way of maximising the economies of scale to become more competitive to the major supermarkets. Since the 1960s the Co-op had been following retail trends after they had occurred, always having to catch