The Government has moved to secure vital talent needed to build the UK’s recovery from Covid-19, protecting employment for thousands of people working in the construction sector.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, announced the launch of the Construction Talent Retention Scheme, a partnership between the Government and industry to secure essential talent in the UK construction sector.
The Construction Talent Retention Scheme, to formally launch later this month, will be an online portal that supports redeployment of staff at risk of redundancy across the sector, while also enabling temporary employee loans between businesses. The Scheme give displaced workers from other sectors a route to find new employment in construction.
PBM takes a look at a few responses from industry bodies.
Construction Leadership Council:
Andy Mitchell, Co-Chair: “This is a great example of what we can achieve when we work collaboratively with Government and we look forward to continuing in this spirit when the proposals and recommendations of our broader Roadmap to Recovery are published. In the meantime we will work with our members and industry stakeholders to encourage the scheme’s use and success.”
Hannah Vickers, Association for Consultancy & Engineering (ACE) Chief Executive said: “This is a proven solution with a strong track-record in other sectors, cross-industry support and pledges from our leading employers. It is vital we keep the skills in our sector to avoid a talent drain and is the only way we will be able to ramp-up activity to lead the recovery of the wider economy and deliver growth through new buildings and infrastructure.”
Mark Reynolds, Group Chief Executive of Mace, and Skills Workstream Lead at the Construction Leadership Council, said: “The CLC’s Construction Talent Retention Scheme will offer a critical lifeline for the construction industry, it will help the industry retain and share our exceptional talent needed to deliver vital infrastructure and support the country’s recovery plan. The scheme is a great example of Government and industry collaboration during these challenging times for the construction sector. We are delighted to support the initiative as a real solution to protecting employment for thousands in our industry, continuing to build a better future.”
Construction Products Association:
Professor Noble Francis, Economics Director: “The Chancellor’s Summer Economic Statement showed that government is determined to get the economy into the recovery phase, with some new policies announced after last week’s damp squib of a ‘New Deal’ announcement from the Prime Minister. As ever, it is the delivery of these announcements that will be key.
“The announcement of a Stamp Duty holiday until 31 March will help to give a sustained boost the housing market after a temporary flurry of housing market activity due to pent-up demand. It will be essential however to also see measures aimed at boosting house building, such as increasing the budget for the Affordable Homes Programme, as well as those aimed at boosting the housing market.
“The £2 billion funding towards energy-efficient retrofit of the existing housing stock is potentially very promising; but the devil is in the detail, as government has previously demonstrated on energy-efficient retrofit programmes, in particular given the very poor experience of the Green Deal policy. In addition, £1 billion for insulating public buildings sounds very good but given this is only for one year, it raises the key question of whether government departments and local authorities have the time or resource to spend this effectively. The main risks are that the majority of this money ends up not getting used or that it gets wasted in a rush to spend it.”
