Council facts

The scrapping of National Training Organisations (NTOs) will see the disappearance of the industry's National Electrotechnical Training (NET) body and the emergence of a Sector Skills Council (SSC) to take over and carry out the tasks currently performed by NET and other allied NTOs.

The progress towards the change is well underway and final proposals for the new Sector Skills Council are now just weeks away.

As speculated in the previous article ('NET change', EMC, Dec/Jan), it seems that the electrical, heating and ventilating and plumbing industries will come together with Amicus – the newly merged AEEU and MSF union – to create a Sector Skills Council.

This will broadly cover what is widely referred to as the construction or building services sector. However, all the participants in the new body intend to push at the boundaries of what the existing individual NTOs currently cover, with a concerted effort being made to extend the SSC's remit to include any areas lost over the past ten or so years.

In respect to electrical skills, this means bringing into the SSC the standards for training in the fields of security and data communication. It has long been the belief of NET and the ECA that these skills belong in the sector and now is the time to bring them into the fold.

It is due to this on-going work that the final definition of the sector is incomplete. What is certain is that the SSC will cover a range of training standards that make the sector greater than merely construction or building services. Finding a name for this multi-disciplinary body could yet be the most difficult aspect of the whole process.

In essence, the work of three existing industry training organisations – NET for the electrical industry, ESTTL for the heating and ventilating industry and BPEC for the plumbing industry – will be concentrated in the new SSC.

But this is not the end of NET, ESTTL and BPEC quite yet. All three will continue while the SSC develops its business plan, recruits its staff and organises to deliver the required standards. So those currently under or about to start training can rest assured that their interests will not be lost in the changeover process. However, the day will come when the organisations will go.

The progress towards the change is well underway and final proposals for the new Sector Skills Council are just weeks away

For those of you worried at the wholesale redesign and rewriting of the training standards, there's no need to as this isn't on the cards. Nor is the issue raised since the preceding article, namely that the standards to which an electrician will be trained will be written by plumbers and refrigeration engineers, or vice versa. That would be lunacy, and such lunacy went out of the door some years ago, never to return.

So what will the new SSC look like?

It seems that a board dominated by employers representing the three industries that the SSC is to cover will be key. These employers will be large, small and middle-sized. They will cover the length and breadth of the country, some will be single-discipline and others will employ a multi-skilled workforce. However, one thing will be common to all of the board members: they will all be committed to training and the development of the sector's workforce.

In addition to employers, the board will have representatives from Amicus, which now represents the whole range of employees covered by the sector.

Since the trade associations and Amicus will fund the new organisation, they will nominate many of the places on the board. However, all three trade associations, Amicus and the Government are keen to ensure that all employers in the sector are represented, not just those who are members of their trade association. As such, some places will be reserved for individuals outside the remit of the ECA, Select, HVCA and the English and Welsh, Scottish and Irish Plumbers.

How these firms are to apply or be appointed is yet to be determined, but with their inclusion the Sector Skills Council will be truly representative of the sector. The sector will be able to approach the Government in a unified way that it has not done before, and be able to do so with the knowledge that at last it is of the size and cohesion of the other main training organisation in the construction industry – the ever present and, until now, dominant, CITB.

The SSC will appoint a chair (to be approved by the Government) and a chief executive, and it is probable that a council, similar to those currently in place in NET, ESTTL and BPEC, will be formed with other organisations that have an interest in the training carried out in the sector. Such organisations might include further and higher education establishments, CORGI, CIBSE and the NICEIC, among others. This council would meet to give advice to the board and find out about the work of the SSC first-hand, so that smooth relationships can be maintained across the wider industry and sector.