Employers penalising sub-contractors by passing on levy

Some contractors are unfairly saddling extra costs on smaller sub-contractors by passing on their levy payments, warns CITB-ConstructionSkills.

The Sector Skills Council and Industry Training Board for the construction industry and ten of its Consensus Federations have joined forces to raise the issue that some employers are making deductions from payments to their labour-only sub-contractors, to pay for their own levy fees.

In a joint statement issued today to highlight and discourage this bad practice, the partnership points out some employers were labelling the charges: ‘deduction for CITB levy’ or ‘amounts in respect of CITB levy’. In some cases the deductions had been found to be set at higher rates than the CITB-ConstructionSkills levy.

Explaining the levy rules, Chief Executive of CITB-ConstructionSkills, Mark Farrar, said: “CITB-ConstructionSkills is the body appointed by Parliament to raise and collect the Industrial Training Levy from employers in the construction industry under the Industrial Training Act.

“The Act does not give authorisation for employers to make deductions from any amounts paid to a labour-only sub-contractor or other worker.

“If your employer is making these types of deductions without your consent, you may wish to seek independent legal advice. CITB-ConstructionSkills is working to deliver the right skills for economic growth locally and nationally and the levy we collect provides the funds to help employers up-skill their workforce and make their businesses succeed and grow,” he added.

The levy money raised is used to provide training grants and other benefits which help employers train their staff and develop their businesses.  Last year, 19,058 employers benefitted from £113m of grant funding.