Review proposes CITB and ECITB merger

1. Intervention is still needed in both sectors due to ongoing market failure. 2. Retain and repurpose the levy-grant system. 3. Construction and engineering construction sectors face common strategic workforce challenges. 4. Strategic focus is required on safeguarding industry capacity and capability. 5. Need to refocus on whole workforce skills and not just new entrants. 6. Need for more strategic workforce planning. 7. Overhaul work on attracting new entrants to the sectors. 8. Career and skills pathways need to maximise the supply and retention of trained workers into and through the industry. 9. Quality of provision is variable. There is insufficient currency and capacity of teaching relative to modern workplace expectations and new methods/regulations. 10. Health and safety cards need to be strategically enabled through greater collaboration, platform inter-operability and unification, all underpinned by industry recognised competency standards. 11. There is currently a missed opportunity presented by both client procurement and the planning system to drive improved skills and training outcomes and to catalyse the changes set out in the review. 12. There is the potential for the new body to be sub-optimal in delivering against new strategic objectives due to its scope legacy. 13. The ITBs are central government arm’s length bodies and required to comply with all financial control requirements. Crucial that compliance with spend controls is not impacted by unreasonable delay. 14. There should be a clearer rationale for particular investment of ITB levy. The review would like to see further evidence of how evaluation and lessons learned are used more systematically in developing strategy and business planning. The latest CITB KPIs are mainly focused on transactions or outputs, rather than measuring the end impact or value added. 15. There should be more transparency of the funding spent directly on training compared with that spent on the costs of running the organisation. It is important that levy is converted to skills investment and industry outcomes at an optimal rate. CITB also appears to be reliant on external consultants at present. 16. The time lag between the activity of CITB’s levy payers and their levy payment should be reduced. 17. There is an opportunity for more strategic engagement with government and with the devolved administrations.