Cuts to construction apprenticeships threaten to reduce the number of skilled workers being trained at a time of skills shortages, construction union UCATT has warned.
ConstructionSkills, the independent body responsible for training entrants to the building industry, is cutting the grant paid to companies for training apprentices by nearly 10 per cent this year, after the levy collected from the industry fell during the recession.
The cuts will come as the coalition government tries to continue Labour’s policy of increasing apprenticeship places. Former Treasury chief secretary David Laws announced last month that £150 million of money recycled from Whitehall cuts will fund 50,000 apprenticeship starts across industries.
But UCATT general secretary Alan Ritchie said that the construction industry needs 40,000 new entrants every year “in order to stand still”, and that numbers had been falling since the recession. In 2007, ConstructionSkills certified about 10,000 qualified apprentices every year.
Under the cuts plan, companies will be paid £9,000 over the duration of each apprenticeship place – a cut of £820. Apprentice adoption grants of £250 a head are being abolished.
Mr Ritchie added: “The decision to reduce the grants for apprenticeships is short sighted, unnecessary and will harm the industry. Most employers already have to be virtually dragged kicking and screaming to employ apprentices. The cut in apprenticeship grants will give them a further excuse not to employ apprentices.”
A UCATT spokesperson added: “It’s clear that this cut will have an effect on the number of apprentices being recruited this summer. It’s a further disincentive for companies to recruit apprentices.”
A 2008 report for UCATT found that construction was suffering from “a skills crisis which could have damaging economic effects beyond the construction sector” because the industry was not prepared to take on enough apprentices.
Mark Farrar, chief executive of ConstructionSkills, responded: “It is essential that we maintain investment in the current and future workforce, but with falling levy income and increased demand for grants, the board has had to review the scheme. The board recognises that in doing this, tough decisions had to be made.”
