Future CITB: Vision 2020 explored

We have touched on the CITB’s “Vision 2020” scheme previously, but to recap for those who may not have heard of this before:

Future CITB: Vision 2020 is the CITB’s plans moving forward to push the training body firmly into the next decade. A large consultation exercise was undertaken in 2017 by the CITB to find out exactly what the UK construction sector feels it needs to support all areas the CITB cover, with the results as follows:

- A business model that is sustainable, effective and streamlined
- Greater accountability for those who undertake CITB training, with regards to their achievements
- Increased transparency
- Further investment into high quality training and development
- Modernisation, to ensure productivity and careers are boosted
- A reformed grants scheme and better value for levy payers (for those who may not be aware, the CITB Levy applies to all employers who are ‘engaged wholly or mainly in construction industry activities). Further info here: About the CITB Levy.

As a result, Vision 2020 was born.

2017-Current

It was apparent from the results that there is still a vital need for the CITB and what they have to offer, but outlooks must be modernised to cope with potential future issues such as Brexit, an aging worforce, migration and increases in workloads. The UK at that time already had various large scale infrastructure projects either in progress or planned (such as HS2) and it was apparent that the CITB needed to deliver a fit-for-purpose training scheme to accommodate and plan for these.

Vision 2020 was set out to address the skills needs for construction, and as a result the following changes have been made:

- A reformed program has been created to address training gaps, based on the feedback as above
- CITB governance has been reviewed to ensure it is representative of the industry, with smaller businesses having good representation
- Through the governance channel, CITB can be held accountable for measuring impact with the changes being made
- Changes have been made to the funding and grants scheme to ensure it is simple to understand, and easier to access

2020 Onwards

You can read the full details released by the CITB in their business plan for 2018-21 (link below) but to recap, CITB intend to:

- Improve their industry-wide delivery on current and future skill needs
- Enhance construction training with increased funding, keeping pace with modernisation
- Improve standards and qualification by industry collaboration, with the aim of producing “work ready” employees
- Services will be automated and digitalised
- Card schemes will be phased out as things move online
- Direct delivery through the National Construction College will be stopped

The KPIs for the CITB for 2020/21 will be:

- Increase in construction/built environment apprenticeships to 25,000 from 2018 baseline of 17,500
- 40% target talent pool to meet the industry’s recruitment needs (2018: 30%)
- Target of 4,300 applicants for CITB apprenticeships from a diverse pool of workers (2018 baseline: 3,800)
- Two targets for Familiarity (57%) and Favourability (68%) of construction careers
- 2020/2021 Target for CITB credibility and value is set to +5%
- 2020/2021 target for being a trusted source of information is set for +10%
- The importance of the Levy Grant system at maintaining level and quality of training needs to meet 70% (Industry) and 46% (individual firm).
- 55% of employers need to be able to say they can access training in a timely manner
- +10% of employers need to believe that the content and methods of training available reflect the industry’s needs
- 80% of funding needs to be commissioned targeted

CITB plan to pour investment in industry skills – broken down, this is set to be £208m from Levy income and £39m net contribution from other income.

Broken down further, this £247m will go into the following areas:

- Engagement - £10m
- Evidence base - £3m
- Training & Development - £211m
- Careers - £8m
- Standards & qualifications - £2m

CITB also intend by end 2021 to have reviewed all the National Occupation Standards that they are custodians of and will have 1,200 employer approved training standards available through the Training Directory.

Further reading

- CITB Priorities into 2020

- 2020 Predictions for the Construction Sector

- CITB Mission & Plans

- Current CITB Levy rates

- CITB business plan 2018-21