Community Hubs - A supportive training & work environment

The Community Hubs need to be within easy access to the population who need them. They would be in the very heart of areas requiring regeneration.

This system is designed to create lasting change not just for the individuals who are long term jobless, but for the local economy as a whole - in time lifting the people out of dependency. It must also take into account the various needs and abilities of this diverse group.

This includes full provision for all ages of dependent children, to allow single parents the same training and employment opportunities. These services need not be costly as they will be provided for, (in the longer term), by fully trained individuals from this very same job seeking community.

While this creates a way forward for each and every individual who is eligible for work - those who wish to opt-out must lose out. This is a carrot and stick approach. The people who opt-out lose their major benefits, and these are replaced with a minimum allowance via (electronically controlled) food vouchers. These electronic vouchers would identify the user and disallow them being exchanged for other goods, drugs or alcohol. The success of these Community Hubs would ensure that for most normal people, the value and higher potential earnings would entice most into changing their work outlook. This in turn takes them away from dependency.

How it works

Each individual is fully assessed and a development programme agreed with them. This assessment would include latent skills & abilities, numeracy and literacy, previous experience, hobbies, interests personality profile and fitness.

Each person is assigned a mentor/coach who is independent from the Community Hub's Team and who can make representation on behalf of the individual and make an independent review of development progress.

After assessment, the development programme is carried forward full-time within the training facilities at the Community Hub. Initially the trainee is provided with their usual state benefits, less an amount for in-house facilities such as the canteen and creche. 'Purchase credits' are provided for these facilities as part of their entitlement.

These purchase credits are part of an electronic money system, (perhaps utlising Blockchain technology), that provides for each persons welfare needs and the running of the scheme as a whole. This electronic money is essentially a 'local currency' for the people who are employed within each Community Hub. This does two specific things:-

1) Creates an internal, local market for the Community Hub. This means that this money will find its way back to the services and jobs being created from the people directly employed.

2) Prevents the leakage of funds from the Community Hub to the wider world and all potential misuses.

People Development

The training needs to be thorough. When each milestone is successfully passed there is a reward process based on purchase credits.

Training and development must be aimed at a specific role within the Community Hub - these however will be wide enough to accommodate most modern job types. Development is ongoing, with additional training to higher level skills creating long term development and really useful skills for a range of employers.

Once the trainee becomes an employee within the Community Hub, they gain a basic pay for the work done. During work time normal job management processes apply.

For people who can't or won't fit in, after reasonable efforts have been made the person must opt-out for a period before being considered for re-training.

The services and facilities should be aimed, in the main, to be useful to the local economy. These would include repair, maintenance, re-furbishing and general services. The in-house facilities, sales, finance etc would all be run by trained Community centre 'employees'. Progression will be available to allow improvement in pay and skills. Each Community Hub would be managed by a senior business person who's job would be to ensure the sustainability & 'profitability' along with the core effectiveness in training and development of the employees in equal measure.

The whole Community Hub's Team will be run as a non-profit facility, any 'profit' can be used to improve facilities. To ensure that a local power-base management process does not impact on future success, each senior 'manager' shall be required to be replaced every 3 years. A team of active consultants would review each Community Hub and pass on 'best practice'. If the Community Hub cannot reach minimum standards it will automatically cease to exists and be replaced by a completely new management team or disbanded entirely if the Community Hub is not considered relevant to a particular area.

Products and services are sold to the local economy. This money will go into running the Community Hub. Employees may use their purchase credits as and when they need, for instance to purchase a refurbished item or local service such as plumbing. In time, the Community Hub will become a centre of excellence for local services. Long-term employees with good skills and commitment will be given the chance to set up their own businesses via a special one-off grant funded from the profits of the Community Hub. Initial help with marketing and administrative tasks would be provided from the Hub and progressively phased out. This would ensure growth of normal local service companies as the area regenerates.

Liaison from within the Hub will actively seek work for employees with the local companies. These local businesses shall, at any time, be able to review a Community Hub employee along with their work achievements and development program.