The first of its kind, the Home Building Skills Partnership, working with research on their needs from some 40 UK home builders, will bring together firms of all sizes to ensure that the industry has the skills it needs to build more homes.
This will include initiatives to promote collaboration on skills across the supply chain, so that the industry can better plan for its future needs and the partnership will support over 3,500 construction businesses and, by 2019, train 45,000 new entrants and 1,000 experienced workers with the new homebuilding training qualifications.
It comes at a time when the house building industry has delivered unprecedented increases in house building over the past two years. The latest figures show that 181,000 new homes were provided last year, up 25% year on year, with the largest companies increasing their output by 50% since their troughs.
With the industry looking to meet Government ambitions to increase output still further, whilst maintaining high levels of build quality and customer service, it is imperative industry capacity is increased.
The aim is that the new partnership will use industry insight to understand skills needs and develop new training and qualifications ideally suited to the modern home building sector and create long term skills solutions to meet the government’s target of one million new homes by 2020.
It will be overseen by a Board that will be chaired by Redrow chief executive officer John Tutte and include a range of senior industry representatives and CITB.
‘The number of new homes is up 25% in the last year because the country is building again and delivering the homes the nation wants. That’s why the Home Building Skills Partnership is an important initiative and will help deliver the training of skilled workers we need to get the job done and to improve quality across the industry,’ said Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis.
‘Construction offers an exciting and rewarding career and we need to build a new generation of home grown talented, ambitious and highly skilled construction workers,’ he added.
Initiatives throughout the four year programme will include research led by the HBF and employers, to get a better understanding of the barriers faced by the home building sector and the design and delivery of a new Home Building Training and Developmental Needs Analysis tool to ensure the right training is delivered to ensure the sector’s skills needs are met, now and in the future.
There will also be the establishment of a framework that will set common standards for skills and training in the home building sector. This will deliver a more relevant and valued curriculum and ensuring the safety and satisfaction of homebuilders and their customers.
‘The industry has delivered huge increases in supply over the past couple of years. To enable us to continue increasing output, such that we can deliver the high quality new homes the country needs, it is absolutely crucial we build up industry capacity,’ said HBF executive chairman Stewart Baseley.
‘To allow us to do it is essential we have a clear focus on delivering the training the industry needs. The partnership will enable us to develop targeted training that meets the specific needs of our industry in a structured way so we can grow steadily and sustainably,’ he added.
Steve Radley, policy director at CITB, pointed out that home building faces major skills challenges and will only be met through new ways of working. ‘Home builders have said they want to work with CITB to anticipate their skill needs, to get closer to their supply chains and to ensure training provision and qualifications meet their needs,’ he explained.
While John Tutte, group chief executive at Redrow, said it will improve quality and productivity across the industry. ‘The Home Building Skills Partnership will bring together and build on the industry’s excellent work and commitment to tackle the skills shortage. The partnership will work to ensure we have a qualified workforce to deliver the high quality new homes the country needs,’ he added.
Stephen Stone, chief executive officer of Crest Nicholson, explained that the UK continues to be challenged by a short supply of suitable, affordable housing stock. ‘With a growing population this shared commitment is a significant step in the right direction,’ he said.
‘Building on the news that build rates on large developments have doubled since 2010 and following the positive reforms proposed in the Housing and Planning Bill 2015/2016, the Government’s determination to tackle the housing shortage is clear,’ he pointed out.
‘By working together to remove barriers and increase the speed of delivery the Housebuilding community can make these ambitions become reality,’ he added.
