NET change

s all contractors who train apprentices will know, it has become a horribly complicated matter. There are so many rules and regulations, players and procedures, that the whole thing has become rather like trying to have a philosophical conversation in a foreign language when you don't know what country you're in.

Currently almost everyone in the industry is involved in the training process: employers and apprentices, the ECA, Select, the AEEU, the JIB, the SJIB, JTL (and other training providers), City & Guilds, colleges and an awarding body. The Government and its offshoots, QCA, Learning and Skills Councils and regional development agencies are also involved, as is the standard- setting body for the electrotechnical industry – NET.

The last of these is the most critical as it sets the standards that apprentices must achieve in order to become electricians. It is also about to undergo a fundamental change in how it is structured and who owns and manages it.

NET (National Electrotechnical Training) is a National Training Organisation (NTO). It was set up three years ago when the Government decided that in order to improve the quality of training, industries should have bodies that define standards and ensure that tuition complies with these standards.

Prior to March 1998 the world of training was, as so many employers will recall, much easier. The 1983 JIB training scheme was the blueprint to which most companies worked. National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), which had become the new currency of training some years earlier, required a complete rethink of the 1983 scheme. With the involvement of NET the 1999 JIB training scheme was introduced.

The standards set by NET are those set by the industry. NET consulted widely with all those organisations listed earlier, and in particular with employers. This consultation ensured that the standards reflected what the industry wanted an electrician to know and be able to do.

The training was delivered, as before, at colleges, where apprentices took their City & Guilds exams to show that they had the required theory, and on site, where they recorded the practical work they had completed in a series of logbooks.

After about three-and-a-half years the apprentices took their AM2 and, after passing all the parts, were awarded an NVQ3 – the passport to a JIB electrician's card.

While the Government is not planning to change the way that training is carried out, it does want to change the bodies that set the standards. That is, it wants to get rid of NTOs and replace them with new bodies called Sector Skills Councils (SSCs).

Irrespective of with whom NET joins, it is clear that there are going to be changes in training that may bring other changes in the wider make-up of the industry

There are currently 73 NTOs. These cover a variety of industries, including those closely allied to electrical contractors, such as plumbing and heating and ventilating, as well as those more distant, such as hairdressing and tourism. Think of an industry and it will have an NTO.

While the Government won't say how many SSCs it wants, it is undoubtedly looking for a considerable reduction – down perhaps to 20.

Some existing NTOs, especially the large ones such as the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), will to all intents and purposes remain as they are with just a change of designation from NTO to SSC. However, those such as NET are being forced to look for other NTOs with whom to get together to create a Sector Skills Council. The questions are: what is our sector and who will be our partners?

Irrespective of with whom NET joins, it is clear that there are going to be changes. Changes in training that may bring other changes in the wider make-up of the industry.

A board of nine plus a chairman currently manages NET. The nine are drawn equally from the ECA, Select and the AEEU. The new SSC board has yet to be formed, but should have representatives of these three industry bodies as well as all the other groups that come together to make up the sector. Obviously the board is going to become much larger – in number as well as in scope. In addition to setting the standards for the electrical industry it will have to set those for the whole sector that it will now cover.

The SSC into which NET will fold has yet to be determined. It is actively involved in discussions with a number of other organisations such as ESTTL (the NTO of the heating and ventilating industry), BPEC (the plumbing industry body), the ETA (the Electricity Training Association who have responsibility for training in power generation and distribution) and GWINTO (the gas and water industry training body).

One other possibility exists, perhaps one that is too unpalatable for electrical contractors to consider, that is a return to the CITB.