Now here’s a really good idea.

Slivers-of-Time is a new way of working. You list the hours you would like to work and local employers buy them.

New web sites are making this way of working easy to organise and less likely to go wrong. They remove all the overheads of booking top-up workers at short notice, for short periods. The web technology to achieve this is only now viable.

The Slivers-of-Time programme is funded jointly by the UK government and private companies. It’s low profile at the moment but working with far sighted government agencies, employers and recruitment agencies to launch a new way of working for the UK.

The interesting thing is that it’s funded by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. So that’s one thing John Prescott is good for, then.