The concept is based in localism, the availability of a large number of people with experience and qualifications who are currently underemployed, to enable them to co-operate productively in new enterprises.

Every community has the potential to provide for its needs locally, drawing on people who are neighbours and who may even have met but do not know each others’ skills.

The aim of the agency is to bring people together, encourage the development of new service and producer co-operatives and enable these new enterprises to maintain contact with like-minded people through active building of larger networks.

The role of any more central body is to provide links to specialist advice, provide higher level services such as national promotion, websites and databases.

It is recognised that national Co-op development agencies, such as Co-operatives UK, exist to provide technical advice on specialist areas of business development and management.

The project is not top down but bottom up. It is local and regional in focus.

The local agency will be volunteer run, as a co-operative, but those taking part may be paid for professional services they contribute to the start up co-ops they generate.

But rather than be a prescriptive model or franchise, each agency will have a character and set of functions related to what is needed and what is lacking in their community. An agency based in the countryside with a number of local people wanting to offer craft based services or production will produce different kinds of enterprise to an urban area where bakers, care workers or youth workers may wish to form co-ops to sell services and products.