Key Insights from the Mark Farmer ITB Review

Shaun Wadsworth, CFA Training Manager, shares key insights from the Mark Farmer ITB Review and its impact on the flooring sector.

“In late January, the Department for Education (DfE) released an independent review led by Mark Farmer, founder of Cast Consultancy. It focuses on the effectiveness of Industry Training Boards (ITBs), particularly the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB). The report aims to address the growing concerns about the construction sector’s declining workforce, and the existing training systems’ ability to meet industry demands.

“The construction industry has been experiencing a significant downturn in employment, reaching its lowest levels since 1998. Focusing on the flooring sector, that downturn accounts for a skills and labour gap that according to CFA research currently sits at 18%. Alongside this, the UK’s population has grown by 10%, further highlighting the gap between workforce supply and demand. This decline is credited to factors such as reduced apprenticeship starts, a decrease in the access to skilled foreign workers, and an ageing workforce. The overall decline, aligned with the challenges identified, raised questions about the CITB’s current model and its effectiveness in addressing the industry’s evolving needs. The review aimed to assess the CITB’s role and to propose reforms to improve their efforts to enhance workforce resilience and productivity.

“The review presented a range of strategic recommendations from its findings, but central to these recommendations is the continuous thread of a ‘fundamental reset of the CITB’s strategic priorities and operations.’ The review emphasised the need for the CITB to transition from solely focusing on new entrants and apprenticeships to a more comprehensive approach that includes upskilling and reskilling the existing workforce. It also highlighted that the levy-grant system should remain but become modernised and refocused with clear KPIs that CITB are accountable for, and that progress should be reviewed against these KPIs before the next consensus period is reached.

“A notable recommendation is a refocused levy-grant system with a revised strategic balance between individual employer apprenticeship grants and other non-apprenticeship support, providing activity and funds in new pathways that provide scope for both new and existing workers that is also scalable. The report also highlighted that CITB’s involvement in attracting new entrants to the sector should be funded by CITB, but the delivery left to the individual sectors.

“A final recommendation to draw attention to is for CITB to support an industry-wide digital skills passport system acting as a centralised platform to track and verify workers’ skills and competencies. The review also highlighted the importance of focusing on competency and behaviour, noting that improving these areas could lead to enhanced productivity and a reduction in costs related to rework and defects, which currently account for approximately 20% of industry expenses.

“The proposed reforms are poised to significantly influence construction training, but the implications for specialist industries such as flooring are yet to be seen. The flooring sector has always been in a slightly unique position in the fact not all works carried out by a flooring contractor fall with CITB ‘scope activity’ requiring companies to pay the levy.

“The digital skills passport system could stand to benefit the flooring sector by providing a transparent and verifiable record of a worker’s qualifications and competencies. This transparency may then enhance employer confidence in the skills of their workforce, leading to improved job matching and career progression opportunities. However, this is a slightly contentious point to highlight installer competence when we hear of contractors continually still battling for some basic expression of main contractor competency as a site level in terms of their ability to provide adequate working conditions (clear space, heating, lighting and uncontaminated subfloors) and the agreed timescales for installation. Competency also indirectly speaks to better payment and retention terms from main contractors.

“There is of course value in widening the opportunity to fund the upskilling/reskilling of the existing flooring workforce, where technological advancements and new materials continually emerge. A workforce that can adapt to these changes is essential for maintaining high standards.

“For employers not registered under the CITB levy, these reforms still may offer substantial benefits. The creation of standardised training pathways and competency records could lead to a more skilled and reliable skills and labour pool, from which all employers may draw from and a collective uplift in workforce quality could drive industry-wide improvements.

“In reality, it is unlikely that the reform suggestions will have a major impact on the flooring industry firsthand, particularly in any changes to how the CITB grant is used based on the small percentage of employers within flooring that are CITB levy registered. I remain forever an optimist and ironically regularly interact with CITB to support industry in key areas such as apprenticeship delivery, standards and competency development. Yet, as a construction industry body the financial support we receive is almost non-existent and valuable courses FITA deliver and align with core CITB aims are largely financially unsupported. Regrettably, I have not seen anything that initially leads me to believe that this will change.

“The Mark Farmer-led review underscores the urgent need for transformation within the CITB and the broader construction training framework if it is to address its workforce challenges, enhance its productivity, and ensure that all sectors are well-equipped to meet future demands.”

Shaun Wadsworth
CFA Training Manager
Shaun@cfa.org.uk
0115 950 6836