The Construction Industry Training Board is unfit for purpose and has had its day, claims the MD of Bridington-based CIS payroll company Hudson Contract.
He’s Ian Anfield, who highlights that CITB reserves have risen by £8.4m to more than £100m in a year in which the Board has said employers had said they were too busy for training. Mr Anfield said: “The reality behind the falling demand is massive disengagement with CITB. Under the Industrial Training Act, CITB is allowed to raise the funds necessary to cover its costs, but the latest report and accounts show it is raising much more, and has been for some time, which stems from its failure to properly engage with many employers.
“The accounts pose serious questions and could expose CITB to legal challenge when it goes back to government to ask for another year of levy raising powers. There could be problems ahead with the Charity Commission and HMRC.”
He called for the Board to cut levy rates to ease pressure on construction SMEs or to increase the number of training courses delivered, saying that its current business plan did little to address skills shortages or improve engagement levels with employers.
Mr Anfield added: “CITB supposedly exists to provide training to construction but by the chairman’s own admission, yet again it has failed.
“And when it comes to explaining what is going wrong, the best CITB can do is come up with glib criticism of the industry for not prioritising training.
“If our clients didn’t have to dig so deep to pay the levy in the first place, the state it has got itself in would be almost amusing.”
