During the latest recession as skilled or senior professional people suffered redundancy, many decided to start their own businesses. Some escapees from the crash of the City actually became Investors into young businesses.
With the huge cuts to public spending now being implemented there will undoubtedly not only be direct job losses, but with contracts being cancelled and bought-in consultancy slashed, there will be massive collateral damage to the private sector as well.
This could be an opportunity to help some of the affected become self-sufficient and start their own businesses. Where else will they find a new job with the mayhem that is about to hit the jobs market?
There will be a wonderful pool of talented yet frustrated ex-employees that will be keen to make a new life of self-employment rather than face the despair of applying fruitlessly for a dwindling supply of suitable jobs. Surely now is the perfect time to help them achieve this.
However, the announced cuts already talk about reducing the regional development funds and I can’t see any attention being given to helping start-ups or growing businesses.
I think the new government is missing a huge trick here. This is the perfect opportunity to provide a focus on young businesses. Producing a programme that encourages entrepreneurs to grow their own companies and in turn delivering growth to the UK.
I totally agree. However, I really do think the Government should get the banks involved and encourage them to offer low-cost loans that would be affordable to a person starting out, which would be on condition that the person accepts a mentor or business manager who will help guide them though the business sector.
The banks could help out by actually doing the accounting for the business people afterall, they will have accurate figures with what is going in and out of the business account. The Government should also give the person setting up the business some financial support subject to help transition from welfare to work. The loans would pay for themselves in the long run as people wouldn’t be dependent on benefits. Also if there was an initiative to help the housebound disabled or others who have commitments such as one parent families, and carers and such, there wouldn’t be any excuses why a person couldn’t work especially if they were working on the internet.
Not only that, the government are not thinking that they could outsource low-level work to home working for some of the civil service jobs. All people need are the tools to do the job.
Thank you for listening
Tanya Petrena
I have worked with a fairly large number of early stage technology businesses, some funded through Business Link contracts. What I have found, almost invariably, is bright highly motivated, usually young, people with great technical skills and good ideas but who need the help/support of someone who has helped grow businesses and understands the marketing and financial strategies/structures that are likely to be needed to make their concept work.
The support of someone who understands the needs of shareholders and bankers and can advise on negotiations with potential suppliers and customers are all invaluable for someone who has come from part of a larger organisation and has yet to see the full picture even though they have a potentially exciting business concept.
I think that Government does have a role to play in providing access to high quality advice to maximise the chances of building the successful businesses of tomorrow, the tricky part is deciding whose concept is likely to have growth potential!
It isn’t always the young people who have good ideas. You all have a forgotten resource that will save you money in the end, if you embrace technology and allow people to work from home, you will not only save on business rates, building maintenance and office furniture. You could be totally flexible and be able to meet your customers face to face maybe in nicer surroundings than a bland office. There would be less people taking days off for child care responsibilities, and you could also have a 24/7 presence because people wouldn’t have to commute to work. The computer would already be there. You want to save costs, and you want to move forward. Then start to embrace home working for your employees. You could pay a basic wage and then an attractive bonus for results on what has been achieved. Which would improve productivity. All this idea needs is for someone with some vision to make this work.
The government should take a bold initiative and help people work from home by leading by example with the civil service having to make savings, they should start with the buildings which are too costly to maintain.
The government could make everyone self-employed and make things more simple with the taxation system and benefit system that is simple to understand. Everyone would be in this Working Scheme Initiative, and they would have to pay in for at least five years before they could claim anything from benefits that is including foreign nationals too, with exemptions for special cases such as the terminally ill, or pensioners.
Everyone within the country would be assigned a person to the local jobcentre plus offices and they would be a benefit and taxation co-ordinator who could be in contact with their doctor’s throughout their working career, with no one being left on the shelf feeling as if they can not contribute because they can.
Everyone would have a portfolio and there would be a copy for the benefit and taxation co-ordinator at the jobcentreplus so that that both parties would have a record of the of achievements maybe from voluntary work or their qualifications. This would serve two objectives, first one being that the person would be able to look back on their achievements, and the second would be that should a person try to become work shy then it would show up immediately.
The benefit and taxation co-ordinator will would be a mentor or assign a mentor and try to encourage a person, to motivate the person and if the person couldn’t find work in their chosen profession, then they would have benefit is they were training for a new profession or they were working voluntary for their community while waiting to find work in their chosen field.
Everyone would only be able to have one business bank account no matter how small or how large the business. However a person could have sub bank accounts that branched off from the big business account, for example your personal account.
The banks should assign everyone a business manager, who could help people to manage their money more effectively by money management schemes, where the money for Taxation and NI contributions could be collected monthly and transferred to the Tax Office directly along with a bank account statement of transactions of that account.
That way accounting records would be more accurate as they would have qualified people at the helm to help lay people like myself to grow personally instead of throwing people aside. This would help people feel more involved in helping our country grow.
It is only with help making people feel as if they are contributing in some small way that you will end up with the proper community that Britain once had, where everyone was valued and people were not just shoved to one side because they are not wanted.
If you shove people to one side, then you breed resentment and you allow criminals to take a hold of people who feel there is nowhere to go for help and we all know that slippery road leads to crime, drugs and more dependency on prisons.
Should a person end up in prison, we shouldn’t allow them to wallow in self-pity, we should have electronic tagged chain gangs who clean up big projects like rivers, streets, and other eyesores that are around Britain now so that we can make this country a more pleasent place to live. They could also help in community based projects (subject to what crime they committed). Historic buildings and landmarks could be saved as this would be a source of cheap labour.
One more radical solution to in order to save more money would be to bring back capital punishment and take a look at the USA’s example of death row, all the prisoners who have commited real horrific offences such as serial murders or terrorism would go straight to their fate of lethal injection. Serial pedofiles would have the option of either castration and being on constant parole or lethal injection. This would save us all a fortune trying to house these criminals in prisons. That money would be better spent on either defence or the NHS.
Muggers, Thugs, Con Artists, Thieves, would get the birch and public showing up for what they have done. They would have to wear bright orange overalls with black writing on them as they were working on the chain gangs, with the words Mugger, Thug, Thief or Con Artist for the duration of their sentence.
Here are just a few ways in which the government could actually bring our debt down. However there are too many do-gooders within this country for this to work as with everything you always get someone who bleats that this kind of treatment is unfair and it goes against human rights. Well no one asked a person to commit the crimes that they did on the victims who should have human rights too.
If we want Britain to work, then we need to stop acting like a charity for all waives and strays and start building our nation. Those who do not like the new system are welcome to leave the country and find a more suitable country for their needs.
If the government is serious about lifting Britain out of pit of self pity, and start being a proud nation then we need to start, being proud of our heritage and our traditions, and move forward as one.
I certainly feel strongly that Britain is too soft, it allows other nations to take advantage of us. We are in debt and this may sound awful but charity begins at home. We should sort our our own country and our own people first before helping others. It is a bit much when disabled children are having to rely on charity in order to get equipment and treatment which could keep them alive or there are pensioner who are dying because they cannot keep warm.
If we are a family then lets get our house in order. Sorry I will gingerly get off my soapbox now.
Although I been vocal over these last few messages, I have serious problems.
Business Link wouldn’t help me, because I am a housebound disabled person. I cannot go into the workplace because I suffer from sudden blackouts that happen daily. I am in constant pain and I do have other problems too.
However, I have offered to work from home. I do have skills that could be used and they could be expanded on by giving me a little bit more training and some equipment in order I may become self-employed.
However, the person who came to see me and he told me that no one really wanted to know and there doesn’t seem to be any grants or loans for people like me. He came to my home and he left me feeling two inches tall and that I was surplus to requirements and I wasn’t worth helping. However, I know I am a voice in the wilderness, one really wants to know, they just start pointing their fingers at the ‘so called lazy disabled people’ without knowing the true facts behind genuine people who are trying to help themselves but have a brick wall in front of them that is immovable .
I am trying to look under every rock and get in touch with everyone so that just maybe with a little luck someone might just listen and give me the chance to prove to you that I am not lazy, all I need is a chance to work around my disability and I will.
Hi Tanya ..I can suggest ways you can move forward but i need your contact email ?
The solution to many employment problems should start in the schools ..( I speak from 30 years teaching technology and design )
You are right NOW is a time of immense opportunity to engage the innovation ..in the young and silver entrepreneurs …
They need two things .1 A mentor
2
…knowledge .
Many of the government departments are no good …for helping ..
How about company patners having a section just for the people we have been discussing .? ….A very good example of this is the organization S.C.O.R.E. in USA
humbird