Fancy a levy?

Let me begin by confessing. When, 15 years ago, the h&v sector withdrew from the scope of the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and its statutory training levy, I was right behind that decision. As far as I was concerned, under the arrangement operated by the CITB we did not receive a good return on our financial contribution. I still believe that to have been the case.

The trouble is that – as many industry colleagues now acknowledge – when we quit the CITB in 1989, we threw the baby out with the bath water. I now realise that it was not the concept itself that was at fault, but the way in which it was being put into practice.

The basic argument for a statutory training fund – let us avoid the terms ‘levy’ and ‘grant’, along with their negative historical connotations – to which all who do not train are compelled to contribute is surely a simple one.

We operate in a sector in which skills shortages are endemic. A sector where a traditionally cyclical economic environment renders an ongoing commitment to new entrant recruitment and training difficult to sustain. And – most important of all – in which too many employers are prepared to leave investment in vocational education to others, on the assumption that they can always use a little of the money thus saved to ‘poach’ any talent that their businesses may from time to time require.

The result is that the ‘good guys’ end up carrying the financial and administrative burden that is an inevitable aspect of apprentice or any other training. Meanwhile, the ‘bad guys’, that is those who steer well clear of the training option, are in a perfect position to lure away the best qualified operatives with over-the-odds employment packages.

Owing to the reduced cost base on which they operate, the bad guys can also undercut the keenest tenders. Given this lowest-price culture of ours, they can grab more than their share of available projects.

How much fairer therefore to introduce a framework where the playing field is levelled between those who shoulder their responsibilities by undertaking training, and those who shirk them by contributing nothing to the skills pool.

These days, the supply of young people eager and qualified to follow a career in m&e services is as great as it has ever been. Yet the number of employers prepared to offer them the opportunity they are seeking falls far short of what is needed to give many of them an opportunity to commence a career or to provide our industry with its required skills base.

Time is not on our side. We must act now to replenish our future skills pool

Over the past few years, the hvacr industry’s principal training provider Building Engineering Services Training (BEST) has closed its books to young applicants as early as March. This is due to an acute under-supply of employers able and willing to give them the start they are seeking.

A statutory training fund would go a long way towards addressing this dilemma. Of course, in order to be successful, the regime must meet the needs of the sector it has been established to serve.

Training and retraining must be fit for purpose and of the highest quality. The charges must be adequate for the needs of the sector, but not unnecessarily high. The administration must be efficient and cost-effective. Also, the basis upon which employers’ contributions are calculated must be fair and equitable.

Our long-term aim must be to encourage many of the companies who do not train to begin. The monies available from a training fund would do this. I also believe that, in the light of the formation of SummitSkills as the sector skills council for building services engineering as a whole, it must operate sector-wide.

This means that to be successful the campaign for a training fund must win the support of the electrotechnical and plumbing disciplines to the same extent as it has that of the hvacr industry. Yet no one who has spent even half as long in this sector as I have can deny that our underinvestment in skills goes back not just years, but decades. No one who spends more than a few minutes on site or at an industry event can fail to mark the ageing nature of our workforce.

The plain truth is that time is not on our side. We must act now to replenish our future skills pool. I believe that the establishment of a statutory training fund is the best, fairest and most practical solution.