A number of speakers at the annual Heating and Ventilating Contractors' Association (HVCA) event said the industry was creating its own problems through widespread use of agency labour and by refusing to take on apprentices.
National Training Forum chair Stuart Lyon told the 170 delegates that agencies had "no allegiance to the industry and are only interested in making money". He rejoiced in the fact that the use of agency labour is not widespread in Scotland, where clients "expect firms to employ the people that work on their projects".
"There has never been more funding available for training than there is today," said Lyon, who is also managing director of MITIE Engineering (Scotland). "We have had a sustained period of work – so why is our industry not training to meet the demands that it has created?
"Perhaps the time for voluntary training is coming to an end. It is not the responsibility of the Government or the HVCA to provide training, it's down to the employers because they are the ones who benefit."
HVCA president Robert Stirland thought: "The best opportunity we have of putting our house in order is to introduce a training levy."
Lyon also announced that a pan-industry forum was being set up by the HVCA to debate how to remove the "barriers to employment" that prevented companies from taking on young people.
However, many other speakers identified the lack of young people applying for membership of the industry as the more serious problem.
Baroness Sharp, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for education in the House of Lords, told the conference that only 5% of young people completed skills-based courses each year, which was "abysmal".
She attacked Education Secretary Estelle Morris (who turned down an invitation to speak at the conference) for failing "to understand this issue".
Source
Electrical and Mechanical Contractor
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