On Wednesday (8 December) CITB announced changes to its Grants & Funding schemes. CECA members were briefed on the changes the same afternoon.
Commenting on CITB’s annoucement, Jemma Carmody, Director of CECA Yorkshire & the Humber and CECA CITB Prescribed Organisation (PO) representative, said: “CECA is extremely concerned about the scale and speed of the changes to CITB’s Grants and Funding Scheme announced on 8 December.
“While we recognise the financial pressures CITB is facing, sharply reducing or removing support for short courses and higher-level qualification, including Level 7, risks undermining our members’ ability to invest in the skilled workforce needed to meet the UK’s infrastructure ambitions, and will undermine the ability of UK construction to drive economic growth.
“Short courses and Level 7 qualifications are not optional luxuries. They underpin day-to-day site safety and the technical and commercial capabilities required to deliver complex infrastructure schemes.
“Introducing such far-reaching changes at such short notice – and without consultation with prescribed organisations – is extremely challenging for contractors and the wider supply chain, many of whom make substantial levy contributions.
“CECA supports the principle of Employer Networks and recognise that they have helped many smaller firms to engage with CITB and access training. However, they are not yet an adequate replacement for direct short-course grant support and do not currently support the specialist sectors, such as Infrastructure, sufficiently. The decision to reduce funding and to remove large employers from Employer Networks incurs a real risk of creating gaps in provision.
“Scrapping support for short courses and Level 7 qualifications may prove to be short sighted and would certainly have been better handled by phasing in any changes over a longer period to allow businesses to plan accordingly.
“We are disappointed CITB has adopted a ‘cliff edge’ approach rather than exploring the capping of individual employer claims, or more tightly targeting grants to meet specific priority skills needs.
“CECA will be raising our concerns with CITB, and remains keen to work with them, our members, and the wider supply chain, to identify creative solutions that ameliorate the impact of the changes announced this week.
“We must work as an industry to place CITB on a stronger footing to ensure it operates on a sustainable model that protects critical construction skills, while addressing genuine budgetary pressures.”
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