The construction industry is essential to the delivery of the government's ambitions to increase levels of house building and to improving the UK's economic and social Infrastructure. However the sector is characterised by recurrent skills pressures, associated with its widespread reliance on extensive sub-contracting and recruiting skilled labour project-by-project.
Nick Boles, Minister for Skills, and Brandon Lewis, Minister for Housing and Planning, have asked the Construction Leadership Council to work with Mark Farmer to identify actions which will address this, focusing on what measures will help lead house-building and other construction firms to ensure they have the skills, and the skills pipelines, that they need. They will take recent work, including his own report (with Simon Rawlinson) People and Money, as a starting point. The work will also examine the barriers and enablers to the greater use of off-site construction, specifically in housing.
The work will engage with construction stakeholders and take account of current practices in the sector, including what factors affect the use of and reliance on native and migrant labour, and of existing arrangements in place to support skills in construction including college and FE training, Levy systems and apprenticeships.
The Construction Leadership Council will report to Nick Boles and Brandon Lewis in the spring of 2016.
January 2016