Supply and Demand

Exotic destinations

Here at My Family Care we're a very UK focused bunch - we're gradually and slowly looking overseas but for the most part my business trips involve the District line to the City and the very occasional trip to Watford or Leeds. I love what I do but exciting travel opportunities are a rarity.

On the other hand we do get regular invitations to select Westminster venues with the highlight always being a Downing Street reception. We had one of those last week to announce the merger of Daycare Trust and the Family and Parenting Institute (for people in our line of work, two of the best childcare bodies combining their firepower is exciting news).

Untapped resource in the NEET community

Now that I've name dropped I can tell you that it was actually an interesting event with decent canapés. I got chatting to Paul Lindley - founder of the very successful and brilliantly branded Ella's Kitchen. Conversation naturally turned to childcare and the pressures the system is under. Like most industries, the biggest challenge is linking up the ample supply and demand in an efficient way.

Paul didn't just feel strongly about this, he was fanatical (he's an accountant by training after all). But his idea - linking up the needs of working mothers with the challenges of part time work and the huge untapped resource we have in the so called NEET community (not in employment, education or training) - is brilliant and worth reading about.

In this brave new connected world, can ideas from a clever entrepreneurial guy like Paul ever work their way into reality without being bogged down by lobbying groups and green and white papers? Probably not but all good laws and initiatives start somewhere - maybe even on that District line into the City?

Ben Black