Category Archives: Solutions

There are a lot of people driven into poverty through loss of employment and ineligibility for government support, eg self employed or new businesses less than one year old. On the television we see cases that invoke a charitable response, however, the charitable institutions are too impersonal. A donor might wonder what fraction of theirContinue reading “Personalised Charity”

How would it work? Employees would be entitled to spend up to 10% of their working week away from their jobs, performing voluntary services in the local community. Employers claim a tax credit against their wage costs (salary & NI). The voluntary work would need to be approved, but should include: • Youth sports coachingContinue reading “Corporate Tax Credits for Employee Volunteering.”

1(a) Relevant problems enhanced by Covid: Disrupted communities, loneliness, isolation, mental health / low self-esteem / loss of purpose, a stressed voluntary sector, reduced physical health and enforced early retirement. (b) The opportunity: An enhanced willingness to listen to new ideas. A catalyst to address the above problems (which pre-existed but to a lesser extent).Continue reading “The Challenge Hub – A “Duke of Edinburgh’s Award” for over-55s. Not for profit.”

In order to encourage people to get “back on public transport” why not change the tax laws and allow costs of travel – to and from a place of work – to be classified as genuine expenses which can be claimed or off set against a tax return. At the moment people on PAYE haveContinue reading “Getting people to use public transport again”

Cultural renewal implies growth and regeneration. The pandemic and Brexit provide a perfect opportunity to re-structure and re-charge culture in the UK, levelling up areas that have been left behind and building on the communities that have been vital to so many throughout the last 10 months. I propose that new cultural renewal hubs areContinue reading “Devolved cultrual renewal hubs and a public works of art project.”

Summary: The UK government has committed to become a net-zero carbon emissions nation by 2050. Many businesses and organisations would like to achieve net-zero themselves a lot sooner, so government should setup a national scheme to enable them to do so, helping spur the push to net-zero and dispersing the cost of achieving it. Policy:Continue reading “A Nudge to Net-Zero – Creating a National Net-Zero Certification Scheme”

Summary: The policy response to the under-tapped economic potential of over-50s women should be the creation of a government-sponsored national platform (called ‘Portfolio Women’ or similar, to represent a step-change in career). It would act as an accessible and user-friendly cross between Mumsnet and LinkedIn for women aged over 50, with official backing from theContinue reading “A bespoke networking platform for employment, entrepreneurship and re-training for over-50s women”

Issues with current volunteering process: 1. Often inflexible time options (e.g. lots of opportunities throughout the working day, or minimum time commitments); 2. Often not accessible/inclusive (e.g. travel); 3. Opportunity cost to society when not everyone can afford to volunteer; 4. Slow to achieve impact (manual matching/application process, hard to gather group of volunteers). Solution:Continue reading “Capitalising on volunteering for all – ‘Crowd-resourcing platform’!”

Using the topical meeting of 99yr old Sir Captain Tom Moore and 5yr old Tony Hudgell- inspired this; We merge the social and educational services that currently exist in isolation across our towns, both physically and culturally. Immediately we make use of our empty High Street buildings to reconfigure all schools and community services intoContinue reading “Forward to the Village”