Annual Review 2006

A message from the Chairman

No one is ever going to love paying the Levy. But there is widespread understanding of why it exists, and support for what CITB-ConstructionSkills does with it.

All the main industry federations gave the Levy their written support last year, and in an independent survey, 70% of non-federated levy-paying employers and 75% of all construction employers were also in favour of it.

Why? Because CITB-ConstructionSkills helps the industry to share the costs of training. It delivers improved safety and a better trained workforce. It allows the industry to wield more influence, to spot and respond to trends more effectively and to achieve more than would be possible for individual companies. This is part of what we mean by delivering value.

And because CITB-ConstructionSkills uses this money to generate more money, the industry receives far more back than it contributes in Levy.

Last year, for example, we distributed over £113 million in training Grants – a 7% increase on 2005. And well over 20,000 registered firms benefited. Another way that the system works is that over 10,000 mainly small firms who had paid no Levy at all received £26.7 million in Grants and other support to train new entrant trainees.

For every £1 of Levy we received in 2006, we returned £1.90 to the industry. The figure in 2005 was £1.88, and in 2007 we expect it to continue to rise as a result of the added status that our position as a Sector Skills Council brings. The trend is clear.

And what do we do with the money? A huge amount. The new SkillsDirect programme, delivered almost 21,000 competency cards with the minimum of fuss. 2006 also saw the one millionth successful candidate pass the Health and Safety Test. It saw more than 32,000 workers gain S/NVQs through On Site Assessment Training (OSAT). It saw 45,000 people apply for construction Apprenticeships and framework achievement rates at a record 67.6%, up from 55% in 2005. Our promotional campaigns to attract the brightest and best into the industry of the future were seen by millions of young people.

All this, at the same time as cutting bureaucracy to make us quicker and simpler to deal with and easier for people to benefit from what we offer.

This is what we mean by delivering value for your Levy. And we are always looking, with our stakeholders in construction, for new ways to add further value to skills, training and performance in the industry.

Sir Michael Latham DL

Chairman

Annual Review 2006 829kb PDF file