Response to Redundancy, ESF, Joint Action Plan, ERAP, New Deal, Flexible New Deal… the list of documents, initiatives, and strategies for ways to drag us out of the recession and get back people into work seems endless. Whilst they will play a part in providing people with the right skills for the right job, we still need vacancies in order to get people back into work -  if consumer and business demand remains low, the supply of opportunities for an ever growing list of unemployed will get smaller by the day, leaving us sliding down the snake after scaling up the ladder!

Gloucester is thankfully doing its thing through the Quays Development - a 60 acre £400 million investment in the heart of the city - where new jobs have been created along with 100’s more scheduled and giving something for the local support projects to feed into directly.

Whilst we wait for other large projects to be bestowed upon us, I’m off to DIY store to get the bits and pieces for a new shed and hopefully do my bit to spend, and build us out of this situation.