Small firm hits out at CITB levies

Exclusive by Glenda Thisdell



A Kent road-surfacing firm is bitterly protesting over having to pay more than £2,000 in levies to the Construction Industry Training Board while larger firms are claiming exemption.

This year's bill came as a shock to £1m turnover Revell Surfacing, which has 10 employees, because, in previous years, the firm had worked as subcontractors for larger firms already paying a levy to the CITB. A calculation is performed by the CITB so that the board is not paid twice for the same job.

The firm's managing director Mike Revell said: "Major national road-surfacing companies, some turning over in excess of £15m per annum in road laying operations, can be exempted from paying the CITB levy because their core operation is quarrying or other operations."

A CITB spokesman conceded: "The difficulty is that you have to draw a line. A business whose main activity is not construction does not have to pay a levy to the CITB. If a business is defined in statute as construction, then it does have to be assessed by the CITB. If you take the view that it is activity which must be levied, you would need a register of everyone's activity and this is not practical."

Some 60,000 firms are on the CITB register.

Revell dismissed the idea of applying for a CITB training grant. "We have done so on one occasion and it's not worth doing the paperwork," he said.