Speech by Sir Michael Latham to
Construction Liveries Group
Carpenter’s Hall, London, EC2
24 March 2004

It is a great pleasure to be addressing your historic group this morning, in the wonderful surroundings of Carpenters’ Hall. I do so not only as an Honorary Freeman, and proud to be so, of the Constructors Company, but also as someone working full-time in the industry in many different roles. I wonder if the founding fathers of the Carpenters Company would ever have imagined that hundreds of years later their descendants would be sitting in the same hall pondering the future of their industry. I think they would not be surprised. They would have assumed that the skills they had acquired, and which it was their task to ensure that others acquired, would remain essential to build their country. And they would have been right. We need craftsmen (and women) today just as urgently as they did then.

What those medieval founders could never have imagined before the Industrial Revolution is the degree of competition that exists today from other industries seeking to attract talented young people. Nor could they have guessed what some of those competing industries would do. It is, after all, only since CITB was founded 40 years ago that faxes, modems, e-mails, mobile phones, CAD drawings and all the rest have come about. And what is 40 years to an ancient livery company? It is but as yesterday.

Nevertheless, had they been able to envisage it, those fourteenth century masons or carpenters who built the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe would have taken some comfort from the fact that an organisation called ConstructionSkills now exists. They would have seen a great deal of common sense in what we are seeking to achieve today and how we go about it.

What is ConstructionSkills for? Well, bluntly, we do what it says on the tin. We are about skills in construction – full stop. More specifically, we have four main objectives. They are to:

• Reduce skills gaps and shortages, and help employers and employees to make informed career and personal development choices
• Improve productivity and business performance in our sector
• Increase the opportunities for everyone in the workforce to develop their careers and improve their productivity, as well as to ensure equal opportunities for all sections of the workforce
• Improve the supply of learning options, including the development of apprenticeships, higher educational courses and national occupational standards.

How will we do it? We will be working more closely than ever with Government, along with funding bodies and educational institutions, to ensure that policies on education, training and skills reflect the views of the industry, its employers and its workforce.

How does this differ from what CITB did – and indeed still does? In a number of significant ways:

• First, ConstructionSkills operates across the UK, enabling us to draw on the different experiences and successes of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• Secondly, we operate across the whole of the industry, from crafts through to the professions, enabling an integrated approach to recruitment and training.
• Thirdly, as a Sector Skills Council, we are being given an unprecedented influence over how public money should be spent. In addition to the levy-supported grants of £84 million which CITB will continue to fund, as an SSC we are being given a major influence over how around £300 million of taxpayers’ money should be used. We will achieve this through an historic Sector Skills Agreement with the Learning and Skills Council, which funds post-16 provision outside schools. It is a great tribute to the construction industry, and the work which so many people and organisations, including the Construction Liveries Group, have done over the years, that our industry has been chosen to pioneer this new approach.

However, the fact that ConstructionSkills has a broader remit than CITB does not mean that our commitment to craft skills is in any way diminished. On the contrary, our greater resources and our stronger employer involvement will allow us to focus even more sharply on where there are specific skills shortages and tackle them. Our Partnership documents, for example, have examined skills needs by occupation in each region of the UK, and they are underpinning programmes of activity with regional stakeholders.

I am only too aware of the danger that More can sometimes mean Less. That is why we have gone out of our way to avoid creating an unnecessary bureaucracy in setting up ConstructionSkills. CITB (GB), CITB (NI) and the CIC, which have come together to create the SSC, have not merged. We have not gone hunting for new offices and we have not spent time and money putting up new brass plates and arguing over our name. We want to get on with the tasks, working with respected groups and organisations such as livery companies to upskill the industry, to improve its image and recruit the new trainees and apprentices we need. That is what we are about.

So, how are we getting on?

Our major challenge is recruitment. Activity in the industry is now back to the levels last seen in the late 1980s, before the downturn of the last decade. The indicators are positive for the immediate future, too. The housing sector remains buoyant, and the Government is encouraging further growth. There is also a substantial and growing programme of public sector projects, renewing outdated schools, social housing and infrastructure. The current high level of public sector activity is projected to continue, or even increase, over the next couple of years. So the other constraints on the sector take on added importance.

In addition to the usual turnover in employment, the age profile of our industry has changed over the last decade. There is a larger proportion of employees in the 30-39 age group in construction than in the workforce generally, reflecting low take-up in the 1990s when activity was reduced. This is true both of manual and non-manual workers.

Replacing those who are leaving the industry and recruiting new people to match the demands on it are made even more complex by the declining birth-rate and the policy of the government to encourage 50% of young people to experience higher education. Of course that pressure for higher education offers advantages to construction, as well as raising 16+ issues. Some – and hopefully a rising number - of the students will attend construction courses. Others will move into the industry later, if we can persuade them of its creativity and attractions. But we will need to ensure that we attract young people into apprenticeships as well.

Our Positive Image campaign last year reached an estimated two-thirds of all 13-19 year olds and their influencers, using a wide range of targeted and mass media. We are getting better at talking to young people in language which resonates with them and at profiling role models for young women in particular who are enjoying successful careers in construction. Each year, National Construction Week involves tens of thousands of school-age children in activities designed to heighten their awareness of construction and increase their knowledge. Through our STEP into Construction programme, CITB-ConstructionSkills continues to try and ease the path of non-traditional applicants into a construction career.

There have been many false dawns in the history of vocational education. I do very much hope that the Tomlinson review will begin to make an impact on the vexed question of parity of esteem between academic and vocational courses. There are other issues to address, not least the whole concept of a 14-19 phase of education with a fixed cut-off point at 18 or 19. This doesn’t seem to make sense at a time when there is so much emphasis on lifelong learning. In construction it might be better to talk about 14-30 rather than 14-19, but also a continuing need to upskill throughout one’s working life. Whatever new structure emerges, it is vital that Modern Apprenticeships can fit comfortably within, or if need be alongside, it.

I know that the livery companies, with their centuries-old commitment to high level achievement, will favour the continuous upgrading of skills. In a culture of lifelong learning we should make good use of those skilled craftspeople who can ensure not only that skills are passed on from one generation to the next, but also that there is a repository of expertise on site, to help and guide less experienced workers. I am also very concerned to raise the status of practical skills – as you are. This goes to the heart of the debate about vocational education. As a nation, as long as we continue to see manual skills as second best to academic achievement, which is a completely unfair comparison since both are essential, we will struggle to develop the skills which our economy needs. Practical vocational courses can also frequently motivate those young people who may have found strictly academic courses at school boring or unfulfilling, but who have much to offer our country as very competent crafts people.

All of this adds to the importance of the mentoring role of skilled and experienced operatives and supervisors. They are role models for young people entering the industry. Whatever your profession, you want something to aspire to – or you are unlikely to stay in it for very long or get much satisfaction from it.

There is plenty of work to do before we can all agree on the right way forward on the achievement of master craftsman status. But we are all, I believe, heading in the same direction and we are making progress. As you know, we are working with English Heritage (and also with Historic Scotland, north of the border) and the National Heritage Training Group to address specific skills issues in the heritage sector, and to assist them in their introduction of a professional skills register.

I hope that we will be able to achieve agreement on a route to master status which will recognise specialist skills acquired to a high degree. It should acknowledge the value of the mentoring role. It should be consistent across specialisms and it should also reflect the demands of the 21^st century for on-site and project management skills. That fusion of traditional skills and values with the commercial demands of the modern industry would make a powerful role model for young people entering the industry today, or who are already in it.

Skills shortages and skills gaps continue to present challenges for the industry, right across the range of occupations and roles. Drawing on a wide range of material, including our own Skills Foresight Reports, we have recently prepared what we have called a market assessment of the construction industry in the UK. What this shows is that there are some regional variations in skills shortages, but there is a pattern. When companies are asked which occupations present most recruitment difficulties, they tend to mention carpenters and joiners, and bricklayers. However, when asked about vacancies, they refer to clerical staff, supervisors, labourers and plant mechanics. So the picture of skills needs in the industry is complex, and in part relates to the way in which the sector recruits its workforce, largely on a project-by-project basis.

One of your own objectives – and one to which CITB-ConstructionSkills is also committed – is to ensure that schoolchildren are introduced to the work of the construction industry. This is absolutely vital work for the future of our sector. Obviously the main thrust of school-related activity will focus on Key Stage 4, in the jargon – 14 plus. But we should not neglect the younger age-groups. Under the Tomlinson proposals, for example, the subject and course choices made by pupils at the age of 14 will be vital for their future careers. It stands to reason therefore that options to which they – and their influencers - have been introduced before that time are likely to feature more strongly in their choices. So the last couple of years of primary school and the early years of secondary school are crucial times.

Construction makes an excellent topic for school projects. It brings together a number of different elements of the national curriculum: maths and science, design and technology, environmental studies as part of geography, IT – to name but a few. This year we have sought to capitalise on this by launching a competition for secondary schools, called Creative Spaces. The competition gives pupils in Key Stage 3 (aged 11-14) the opportunity as part of the national curriculum to work on a design for a building which would benefit their school. Creative Spaces incorporates the CIC’s Design Quality Indicators. We’ve already had more than 450 schools register their interest. The national winner will receive £50,000 towards putting their design into reality. There will be additional prizes for regional winners.

We want construction to be the first-choice career for talented young people. If we all work together I firmly believe that we have a great opportunity over the next few years to turn round perceptions of our industry. And we have to start with young people.

When I say “We”, I really mean everyone in the industry – not just CITB-ConstructionSkills, not just the Construction Liveries Group, but also bodies such as the Strategic Forum for the Construction Industry, bringing together clients, Government and the supply side. ConstructionSkills is working closely with the Strategic Forum on a range of issues. One cluster of issues is about people, not only about how we attract people into the industry but how we avoid losing them. The culture of the industry and the career progression matter very much if we are to make the industry one in which skilled workers want to remain. I am sure that this is another area where we can work together.

The challenges facing construction are considerable. So are the opportunities. Construction has been rewarded for its commitment to training and past successes by becoming a pioneer for a new approach to the expenditure of public money on sector-specific skills development. That is encouraging. It is also a huge responsibility. We have to get it right, or the politicians will ask themselves whether this is indeed the right way forward. And to get it right, the industry has to be prepared to fulfil its own responsibilities.

We can’t complain about the quantity or quality of recruits coming through the education system if firms cannot provide even enough placements for current numbers of would-be apprentices. We will do all we can to promote a positive image of construction, but this has to be matched by the reality on the ground, and the ability and willingness of firms to take on new entrants and train them.

You represent the finest traditions of craft skills. It is an area in which this country can claim to have been the equal of the best, if not the best, in the world. My ambition for the construction industry is to see a highly-skilled workforce, at every level. Ours is a great industry, a creative industry, a proud industry. We need to reinforce the message of its achievements so that we recruit more young men and women of high calibre and indeed not so young. We need far more women and far more people from black and ethnic groups so that our industry looks more like modern Britain. And we need to be world beaters. We need, in four words, nothing but the best. That has always been the role of the historic livery companies. In a global economy, nothing less is good enough for clients. And that is what, with your help and that of many other associations and organisations, CITB-ConstructionSkills is determined to achieve.