The review of the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB), published yesterday (30 January), has called for the two organisations to become a “single, rebranded body”.
The ITB review, conducted by Mark Farmer, was undertaken in 2023 and finalised last year. It sets out 63 recommendations across 17 key findings.
Among the strategic recommendations, the review proposes that CITB and ECITB should be merged, with the new single body tasked with improving workforce capacity, capability, and resiliency.
According to the report, the new body should have specialist, subsector-specific implementation teams spanning construction and engineering construction.
The report recommends the body should be accountable to both industry and government, with clear consequences – set by the Department for Education – if it fails to evidence progress and improvements.
Despite the proposed merger, the government currently has no plans to legislate to create a single body.
A steering group will be set up to consider implementation of all the recommendations.
In the report, Farmer stresses the need for the work of both ITBs and concludes that the levy-grant model should be retained.
According to the recommendations, levy funds should be focused on new priority objectives, supported by KPIs and agreed by industry and government.
Significant challenges
Responding to the findings, Tim Balcon, CITB’s CEO, welcomed the report’s recognition of the significant skills challenges facing the construction and engineering industries and the role the ITBs play in helping to address these.
Balcon said CITB is addressing many of the areas identified within the report through its strategic plan, as well as working with industry and other stakeholders to develop a training and skills system that can meet current and future needs.
He added: “We already work in close collaboration with ECITB on some key areas and we will expand this into a more formal collaboration where it offers value to the sector.
“We must move at pace to work together to tackle the joint needs of industry without the delay and disruption that legislative or structural changes would surely bring and that would inevitably be detrimental to industry success.
“We need to be laser-focused on addressing industry needs by providing standardised levels of competence, alternative routes into industry and making it easier and cheaper to access high-quality training.”
Closer collaboration
ECITB CEO Andrew Hockey agreed there is significant benefit in both skills bodies collaborating more closely.
“We are already working with the CITB and EDF on strategic skills planning for Sizewell C with a view to developing whole-career training pathways and interventions that span both the civil and ECI phases of that project,” he said.
“Formalising this approach for nuclear and other key infrastructure projects – such as those centred around the decarbonisation of the UK’s industrial clusters – will be highly beneficial and should strengthen delivery and impact.”
Hockey added that ECITB has started the process of scoping the recommendations and developing plans to implement them, which will involve consultation with industry and government.
ITB review: key findings
| 1. Intervention is still needed in both sectors due to ongoing market failure. |
| 2. Retain and repurpose the levy-grant system. |
| 3. Construction and engineering construction sectors face common strategic workforce challenges. |
| 4. Strategic focus is required on safeguarding industry capacity and capability. |
| 5. Need to refocus on whole workforce skills and not just new entrants. |
| 6. Need for more strategic workforce planning. |
| 7. Overhaul work on attracting new entrants to the sectors. |
| 8. Career and skills pathways need to maximise the supply and retention of trained workers into and through the industry. |
| 9. Quality of provision is variable. There is insufficient currency and capacity of teaching relative to modern workplace expectations and new methods/regulations. |
| 10. Health and safety cards need to be strategically enabled through greater collaboration, platform inter-operability and unification, all underpinned by industry recognised competency standards. |
| 11. There is currently a missed opportunity presented by both client procurement and the planning system to drive improved skills and training outcomes and to catalyse the changes set out in the review. |
| 12. There is the potential for the new body to be sub-optimal in delivering against new strategic objectives due to its scope legacy. |
| 13. The ITBs are central government arm’s length bodies and required to comply with all financial control requirements. Crucial that compliance with spend controls is not impacted by unreasonable delay. |
| 14. There should be a clearer rationale for particular investment of ITB levy. The review would like to see further evidence of how evaluation and lessons learned are used more systematically in developing strategy and business planning. The latest CITB KPIs are mainly focused on transactions or outputs, rather than measuring the end impact or value added. |
| 15. There should be more transparency of the funding spent directly on training compared with that spent on the costs of running the organisation. It is important that levy is converted to skills investment and industry outcomes at an optimal rate. CITB also appears to be reliant on external consultants at present. |
| 16. The time lag between the activity of CITB’s levy payers and their levy payment should be reduced. |
| 17. There is an opportunity for more strategic engagement with government and with the devolved administrations. |
