Professional Builder’s Edward Kelly speaks to Tim Balcon, CEO of CITB, about the skills gap and supporting SME apprenticeships
The skills gap is one of the biggest threats facing the construction industry. With an ageing workforce, and lack of new entrants, the outlook isn’t entirely positive and many in the industry see apprenticeships as the way to tackle this. The fact is though, a lot of tradespeople find the prospect of taking someone on both confusing and time consuming. We recently spoke with Tim Balcon CEO of CITB about just that. In particular, what the Government organisation was doing to help SME owners take on an apprentice.
CITB’s mission under Tim is very much take-up. Although figures show small companies, of two – nine employees, represent 79% of the construction industry, only 18% of them employ apprentices. I started off by asking Tim why he think that figure is so low.
“It’s confidence mainly but there’s a number of factors. One is employers will only recruit apprentices when they are confident of the work in front of them. The second one is, sometimes it’s just too hard for a small employer to figure out how to get through that training system. So, they need help with that and the bureaucracy and administration that goes alongside it.”
Barriers
Next, I asked Tim what CITB was doing to tackle those barriers to help SME’s take on more apprentices: “We’ve put in place a New Entrant Support Team; this is a team we trialled at the end of last year. What we’ve found is a lot of employers want to recruit an apprentice, but just don’t know how. What we’ve said is we’ll put a team in place to just guide them through it. So, we can say: ‘tell us what training it is that you want’ and we’ll then help guide you through that. It’s no more difficult than that, but the appetite for that service is exploding.”
The New Entrant Support Team (NEST) was rolled out nationally in England in early 2023, predominantly supporting employers, rather than learners directly. As Tim has outlined, the team was created as a response to employer feedback. It looks to increase the number of apprenticeship starts as well as support employers in retaining apprentices to completion.
Tim continued: “In July, we had 700 new apprentices start just from that team, and a lot of it is word of mouth. We’ve not really launched it big (on a grand scale) yet, but the appetite is huge. So, it’s taking away the barriers for employers to recruit and then supporting them, which is what CITB should be doing, and that’s having a huge impact.”
Grants and finances
NEST certainly sounds promising for the industry and its skill shortage. As a follow up, I asked Tim if this team would be addressing grants and apprenticeship finances in particular, as this is widely held to be the most confusing aspect of taking someone on.
“Yes, it is, but there’s a wider programme that we are working on as well. So, industry said to us that they found the grant scheme too complicated, and I have a team in place that is making it easier. So, we’ve already made some changes to the way that we administer grants already and in autumn time they’ll have a more digital interface with us so, yet again, they’ll make it easier. And we’re just developing ways of making it even simpler as well. I have a team of people working on exactly that and again employers are linking it, they’re seeing the simplicity. When I joined there was a 3-month backlog on grant payments, there isn’t a backlog now. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but what it does say is that we have already made some recognition to that and we’re working on it day and night.”
Colleges
Summing up my questions on apprenticeships, I asked Tim if he was aware of another pain point in the apprenticeship process in contacting colleges and having someone to talk to there. “FE colleges are a really important part of addressing the skills issue in construction, but they are stretched at this point in time. So, we are currently working on a strategy that would better support FE colleges. Well, not just FE colleges but all training providers.”
Tim explained that the CITB Apprenticeship Task Group has recently launched an initiative to speak to curriculum teams across the UK, linking the NEST and engagement teams with providers to identify the key barriers to apprenticeship achievement. This allows CITB to deliver specific interventions to support providers with the delivery of construction apprenticeships to work towards improving the national achievement rates.
Overall thoughts
We’re still a long way off from the skills gap being solved, but speaking with Tim Balcon was reassuring. So often the solution to the problem is just focussed on getting young people interested in construction (this is naturally still very important). It was good to hear that CITB also understands the importance of the employer side of things and how complicated and confusing the system can be. NEST is certainly a good start at addressing these problems and I look forward to seeing where else CITB will respond to industry feedback.
To contact the New Entrant Support team, email newentrant.team@citb.co.uk or visit Hire an Apprentice (Information for recruiting) – CITB to find out more on apprenticeships with CITB.
