ECITB needs to double income to combat skill demands

The Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) needs to double its income with an extra £10m to £15m a year if it is to meet the sector’s pressing skill demands, according to its chairman Jim Rowland.

In the board’s latest annual review, the chairman reported “growing concerns as to the decreasing ability of the industry to train new people”. He nonetheless expressed confidence that 2004 will have proved a “significant turning point” with the launch of a new regional training structure and five-year strategic plan leading to improvements in skill supply.

Last year the training board marked up a total income of £13.1m, with £10.3m coming from its statutory levy. Total expenditure was £14.2m with £11.5m going on grants and training programmes. Rowland says the deficit is part of a planned programme of increasing investment and reducing reserves.

David Edwards, ECITB chief executive, said the sector last year turned out a record number of apprentices with numbers being 25% up on the previous year. Significant effort was also focused on engineering construction’s ACE initiative of validating the competence of the existing site workforce.

He added: “A new five-year strategic plan has been developed that will stretch the staff of the ECITB and must challenge the way the industry as a whole trains.”

Edwards accepted that changes stemming from an in-depth review of training board activities had been perceived as representing “unsettling threats” by some staff – resulting in a 25% staff turnover during the year. But he told CJ: “It was a planned programme of change and we have recruited extra people in the field, which was a top priority.”