CITB has published its Business Plan 2022/23 setting out how it will invest over £233 million to support the industry to address its skills challenges.  The plan is focussed on three key areas: responding to the skills demand, developing the capacity and capability of training provision, and addressing future skills needs.

This comes at the same time as the CITB Levy rates are announced to be returning to pre-pandemic levels. The Levy Order 2022 has been approved by Government, which means the CITB Levy rates will revert to 0.35% for PAYE and 1.25% for Net CIS.

FIS Chief Executive Iain McIlwee said:

“Whilst the FIS membership voted against concensus, the wider vote didn’t follow and the organisation now has the statutory support it needs to continue to collect the levy.  It is important from here that we work with CITB to ensure, not that we all get our money back, but that our investment in levy is returned in spades to help us to address the profound skills and labour shortages that we have and that we address the challenges that are making recruitment a struggle.  The three core pillars in here around attracting and retaining people, focussing on the capacity and capability of training provision and looking at the wider areas of construction management are all fundamental to success for the sector and so FIS will be working with CITB to translate these for our sector and ensure our members are aware of and able to access all the support available in an efficient and that it is better targeted to support the needs of the flexible workforce that is construction.  One thing we learned from our recent recruitment interventions is that there is a lot of support out there, some of it excellent, but that we are not consistently using it as a community.”

This plan heralds a new era for CITB, not only through its simplified look and feel, but for how they will approach their role in supporting the construction industry to address the skills challenges it faces.  First it addresses the skills demand at a local level by putting training infrastructure in place to meet the changing needs of industry.  Second, it explores where the greatest value for the Construction Industry Levy will be placed.  And third, it examines where CITB can pull the levers to transformation, so that training is directed at meeting short and long-term industry challenges.

Visit the FIS to Skills and Training Hub

 FIS offers a free consultancy session for members to review their current training plans and funding options.