Simon; my brother is a plumber - he used to be employed by the City Council but now for the local Housing Association which took over their housing stock. He is always busy at night and during the weekends doing jobs for private homeowners, installing central heating systems, boilers, bathroom suites etc. and it's all word of mouth work. I know that years ago he did those City and Guilds courses at the local technical college and he said that his CORGI qualification is the most important if one is doing work as a plumber. Everyone needs a plumber at some stage...my brother gets a lot of work because he doesn't rip people off (some of those call out charges can be outrageous for emergency work) and so he gets repeat business or work purely by word of mouth as they are satisfied with his work and ethics.

I have a feeling that at the Jobcentre they probably informed you that you need to be 'signing on' for about six months or more before you could go on a govt. paid training course?

I did spot this today though...it's a series of free courses you can do online (with support from a tutor at a local college) and there is one on setting up a business...might appeal to you:

http://www.creatingcareers.net/chann...annels/100.asp

Good Luck!

Very accurate on the six months waiting time. I have to sign on for over 6 months for the actual job centre to assist with anything, but we have an enterprise agency in the town and they pointed me in that direction. I have an interview with them this coming friday, the 13th for anybody that's superstitious. I've also done a lot of searching on the internet, I need a new ream of paper for the printer with all the info I've printed off, even the inland revenue site is pretty helpful.