Then, in 1976, when building on the successfully reclaimed small extra facility for the play group was almost complete, another new door opened that seemed to be an ideal opportunity to fulfil our overall dreams more quickly. 

The Job Creation Programme (YOP)

We heard about the new ‘Youth Opportunities Programme’ or ‘Job Creation Programme’ which was being set up by the Government that year to ameliorate the problems facing the young (and not so young) workers following high unemployment in the UK during the early to mid-1970s. 'You can't get a job without experience, and you can't get experience without a job' was the catch phrase of the time. 

The Manpower Services Commission had been formed in 1973 and following a report on ‘Young People and Work’ had developed the Youth Opportunities Programme and alongside this was working with the Probation Service to develop Job Creation Programmes to help reduce some of the more difficult unemployment issues of young people.  They had been given sufficient government funding to mount a programme which was launched in November 1975 when they started inviting applications from ‘Sponsors’. 

The ‘Job Creation Programme’ policy, that was still in its early development stage, appeared to be very simple – and a real answer to prayer.  A ‘Sponsor’ had to put forward a viable short-term programme with public benefit objectives for which they would take full responsibility and provide the materials and any other costs, and the Government would pay the wages of an agreed number of those who were out of work (usually and mostly young people) up to a certain sum and for a limited time. Initial enquiries reported that building programmes were especially to be welcomed in areas like ours.  

It was an attempt to respond to the need to provide a stepping stone to full employment, and any proposed project should be able to offer both experience and training to those who lacked them.  

Our Response

This was in line with our overall aims as the Renewal Programme was built on relationships and encouraging positive practical change – it seemed just ‘up our street’. 

I personally only knew a little about the building trade and that was limited to planning for the renovation of two houses for own family use after leaving a Church Manse, but I was also willing to learn from, work with or enable others.  But also, the teaching and training element was particularly attractive to me.  My calling had always been to teach – especially subjects in which I was really interested.  I did not enjoy speaking or preaching but I did value interaction with others for a positive purpose – and the concept especially to help bring about change, appealed.   With the TCWs we were still working through the related concepts of sympathy and ‘empathy’ – a term which had not been fully embraced at this time – and was much needed if any change were to take place.

Cooperation Helps 

Harold Road’s involvement and experience with the Probation Service, as we were still using some of their skilled labour, also stood us in good stead.  They had seen our commitment and were keen to work with us and had sent some young men to help us earlier in that very year.  Tackling the conversion of the organ loft had proved to be a win/win situation and the Probation Service were keen to help us and any larger project in other ways whenever they could.  The Renewal Programme also already had the cooperation of various departments in the Council such as the Social Services, Education, Youth and Finance, who were all keen to see the building and its facilities develop further – all knowing and welcoming our Christian base. In many ways it seemed too good to be true! 

The next few weeks became a hive of activity to make the best we could out of this opportunity.  Initial potential difficulties were ironed out or fell into place smoothly:  

Sustainability  

If we could complete our proposed project within a limited time frame, we knew from experience that we would have no problems in finding groups to work together to use the new premises that would become available.  The users (current and potential) coordinated by the House Committee, who ran united, open and outside events, would cover the on-going general use and maintenance of the site and we were already hearing of many interested groups who would help to provide and support new initiatives.   

Materials Funding  

With free labour, we just needed to ensure there was enough funding for all the materials and allied costs.  Our initial estimates showed that we would need to budget for around £20,000 plus to cover this. Included in the grant package there was a small provision that allowed us to use up to 10% of any grant for essential equipment but this would all need to be accounted for and resold at the end of the project and the proceeds returned to the MSC.  We intended to avoid this if possible and raise funds ourselves or indirectly through our supporters.  

Further Support  

The Renewal Programme produced an exciting leaflet entitled ‘New Creation in London’s East End’ to circulate to our more affluent Christian friends outside the borough to encourage partnership. This had details of what could be possible and ways in which those ‘dry bones could live’ as ‘a new creation’ and how the needs could be answered with the help of those who responded to the appeal however small. When the programme was well under way we had an Open Day using the same theme when we included drawings of the buildings as they were developing.    

Practical Pre Help 

We opened a separate Harold Road Development Bank account, set to work with a new energy on fund raising and sharing the good news. 

The local Council helped in many ways and once again we were working in new partnerships with the Local Authority.   

The Architect’s Department offered their help with producing good plans from our amateur attempts and keeping them updated.   They also offered to help steer us through their regulations.  

Additionally, the Finance Department agreed to take responsibility for managing the wages system for the new employees: should we be successful, they agreed to manage the grant and pay the employees, sending us all the wage packets every Friday lunchtime so we would just need to keep a note of any materials that might qualify so that they too could be extracted.  I, officially as sponsor, would need to sign the papers off each time. 

Being Realistic 

We recognised that there would be a few down-sides that unfortunately we could not avoid.  

Not only would any funding, intentions and timing, be restricted but it could not include any Christian element (this would need to be entirely separate). Additionally there would be significant extra paperwork as we would need to keep copious records to share with the MSC to help in their own development of this scheme which would have an end date.  It was to be a fully cooperative venture.

Interviews  

Although the Government would pay the wages of those who would be sent to us from those registered with the Employment Exchange, we would need to interview each applicant and be responsible for their work time.  These would all be young men unable to get jobs although they did need to be actively seeking them.  It was made clear that only in exceptional circumstances would we be able to reject anyone: we were seen as a last resort to get them into work, the project would be short term and very transitory with specific limited objectives. 

On-Site Training 

In fact, most of those eligible on the Employment Exchange lists had never held a job of any description.  We were starting from scratch in many ways and showing them how to take this first step into finding their place in society, but as soon as a more permanent job became available, we would need to release them at a moment’s notice. We would be training them not just for what they could do with us but in a way that others could take them further!  Our project for many was to be their first experience of employment, the workplace, or of even being part of a team. 

Our principles of community development, still at a very basic level were really being tested because most of the lads sent to us were regarded as virtually ‘unemployable’ due to their attitude to work. This was graphically expressed by one young man who when he came for interview blatantly blurted out that he wanted a job, but he did not want to work! Putting together a team of young men of this calibre was a considerable challenge, especially for our foremen as they were the ones who needed to try to train them whether they wanted it or not and would not be permitted to dismiss them arbitrarily.  

The objective of the Job Creation Programme was to transform young men like this and make them fit for employment. Part of our task was to prepare them for a further interview with a building contractor by offering them a job as a labourer but discerning if they had the potential and interest in becoming a craftsman. 

We were warned that the interview we offered would often be the first that some of these young men had ever faced and we would need to use it to show them how to respond to questions that would give confidence to an employer because, as soon as a suitable position with more permanent prospects became available for them, we would need to thank them very much for what they had done and let them go. 

We would also need to talk to them about the importance of their work on our specific project which would enable us then to give them a full reference when applying for another job. Additionally, the community centre project itself would need to be well understood in the hope that they would catch the vision and actually enjoy working in our team while they were taking part in our project. Our role was in fact to offer a programme which was to give them this chance of employment which for some of them would be their only chance – we are not sure they would be eligible for a second JCP project once they had been on ours. 

Skills Training 

We would need to ensure and encourage vocational training – and we would need to provide our own basic tuition and a good working environment. To do this we needed to discover local vocational courses with spare places and to release any of our team of young men for day-release classes. When they were successful, we had to agree to start again with further young people, to train each one so that they could take other jobs with commercial firms as it was there they could enjoy full employment. 

Expenses 

We would need to provide separately for any other costs not covered so we could not afford to have things disappearing off the site, as was usual on commercial sites in our area.   Although, in the event, most of the materials were donated or funded by the community in various ways, there was unfortunately inevitably some wastage through inexperienced usage or sheer deliberate attempts at bravado.

Conclusions 

All in all, in spite of the unusual nature and committed involvement, it did seem to us to be a good two-way process – the Manpower Services Commission had their need for worthwhile community benefit projects providing employers willing to take up a challenge, and we would be able to use this unusual, and often difficult free labour, to fulfil our own needs for creating our Community Centre project.  The problems of one group became another group’s answers, and in this way everybody benefited.  

Essential Pre-preparations

a)    Wage Structure and Training

We took advice from the MSC on a simple wage structure based on 70 weeks of 40 hours each week.  We agreed that any negotiation was not an option and that there would be just three types of the long-term unemployed to whom we could offer jobs – these being adult supervisors/foremen two at £56 per week, a slightly greater number overall, of seven different types of craftsmen with varying building skills at £37.20 per week who would be prepared also to have trainees attached to them  and the remainder in unskilled labourers at just £31.60 per week from which potential trainees could be drawn who would receive slightly more - £31.80 per week,  It did not take us long to  establish some links with possible day-release training courses for further training for that group. The project would cover the employer NI contribution and when these rates were increased by the government half-way through the project, these were also covered.

b)    Backing Support

This project required more background support than the Harold Road Centre could have provided on their own.  We immediately felt the benefit of the onsite office space of the small room at the top of the stairs as the Renewal Programme were now thinking seriously of moving into their new space on that floor alongside the developing community work downstairs.   Everything was coming together smoothly, as I became the voluntary sponsor on behalf of the Renewal Programme. 

Our master plan was worked through, and our work schedules were displayed on the wall behind the desks in the future secretarial office. This display covered work programmes, drawings, planning permissions, building regulations approvals and job descriptions for the allocation of labour. They also included timing schedules and the whole plan of works. 

Harry Spruce, or ‘H’ as he was better known, was a young man from the Midlands who came from a building industry background.  He had applied to join an over-subscribed TCW team in 1976 and had been promised a place in 1977 but he was available to start immediately with us and was initially seconded from the Renewal Programme to help on the more technical equipment-hiring and material-ordering side to ensure we had the right materials. This established a pattern of cooperation which was followed up and extended when the project needed more specific help – particularly in the personal support of individuals.  

We were determined to complete the whole project in the limited amount of time being offered through the grant. 

Expanding Practical TCW Training 

During our preparatory time, even before we had heard of this particular programme, I had been highly involved in training our new team of ‘Trainee Community Workers’ (TCWs) who had come in from outside as interns into the Renewal Programme.  This is where we used both this current example of a practical community project and the experience of other long-term community workers to develop our thinking and training. Some of the TCWs who had been with us for some time, had already gone through the experience of changing their own mindsets as they themselves had needed. Those for whom we provided accommodation who had come from middle-class professional/academic cultures often had to make some radical changes in their own thinking. 

This had not been easy for those who brought with them fixed attitudes and objectives of ‘wanting to do good’ to the needy lower classes. They often struggled to understand our community development principles of ‘starting where people are’ and acting as ‘enablers’ rather than as professional ‘providers’. They had to learn not only a new culture but a different understanding of social values and standards of success and achievement in work and even in terms of moral values. These were things that they had not encountered and had never before considered.  We discussed many of the different kinds of struggle that they might expect to find. We knew from experience that changing attitudes for some of them would not be easy, but we were in the business of changing lives. We would need to be prepared for the following: 

Culture Struggles 

• middle class /working class struggle.
• racial strife
• generation struggles
• struggle with authority
• struggle for acceptance
• struggle for organisation
• struggle for lateral thinking

Grant Applications 

Using the limited plans that we had by this time and all the preparation we had done as above and feeling we knew as much as we could on what we would be undertaking, we took it the next step – and before Christmas, actually on 26 November 1976, we put in a fully detailed application on all fronts to the Job Creation Programme for a 40 week programme, dividing the work into 5 stages and saying we could start in the New Year 1977. I became the ‘Sponsor’ in the name of the Renewal Programme but recognising that this would need to be mainly carried on behalf of the Harold Road community who would be the ultimate beneficiaries. 

Grant Offered

We heard in mid-February 1977 that we had been awarded up to £48,462 of labour and £1,650 of other agreed costs with a detailed contract to cover a slightly reduced 45 week programme with a maximum of 20 workers at any one time which would need to be activated within the next five weeks!!    I had to think financially as well as relationally as this contract would become a constant referral document along with the sponsor’s guidelines plus various other papers.  But the clock was starting to tick.