Make your own Job Centre

Here’s an extraordinary story. But it should be much more ordinary. The reasons it isn’t have a lot to do with how we are assuming our society should be organised from the top down, by big (increasingly privatised) organisations, and with a fair degree of homogenous ‘ get on with our way otherwise you’ll suffer’ thinking.

Three years on the Aspley estate in Nottingham a group of kids were repeatedly being given Anti Social Behaviour Orders. They were clearly a nuisance( they threw eggs at people, in a somewhat old fashioned way) and their families were both being blamed and sometimes threatened with eviction.

So far so standard. Enter Councillor Carole McCulloch, who represents the estate on the local council. She decided it was time to take control of things locally so she set up the Communities Taking Control scheme , got all the recalcitrant young men together with police and parents and got them to agree to clearing up the mess they had made. On Day One six youngsters showed up with a degree of grumbling about not being paid. Something happened that day- usefulness, team work, purpose, who knows for sure- and the next day 18 young men were there.

Carole McCulloch, after a few days of this, and with vandalised properties and spaces running short, decided to create an improvement scheme. It involved clearing alleys, painting fences, putting up hanging baskets. Areas of the estate are now gleaming, pristine shining with good works and fresh paint.

What she says about her scheme ,which has been running since 2011, is that is for local people, by local people. She gets financial help from the local authority  and the firm responsible for cleansing agrees to take on the youngsters from her scheme as trainees. Most of the young men who’ve taken part in the now named Aspley and Bells Lane Partnership go into jobs or education and training. The cost per participant is, Carole calculates, £115.50  – compared to £2,097 charged by the Work Programme(mainly outsourced).

So what are the lessons? Localism, commitment, knowing the ‘clients’ – in Apsley someone’s son, someone’s school pal, someone’s neighbour- and trust. And there’s no profit motive. The market can’t ‘deliver’ what Carole McCulloch does. And we really need to think about that.