FIS showcased its flagship BuildBack programme by hosting an open day at Tyne Metropolitan College on 10 April.
The event enjoyed full attendance and participation from all partners, employers and trainees including Mary Glindon, MP for North Tyneside. The trainees put on a demonstration of their skills learnt to date.
MP Mary Glindon said “what I have seen here today is trainees building new skills and getting into a trade, that will not just carry them forward in a job for life, but will enable them to earn a high level of income”.
Working in collaboration with CITB and in partnership with Tyne Metropolitan College, Jobcentre Plus and Dry Lining and Plastering Training Forum (DLPTF), the programme is designed to provide opportunities for job seekers who are serious about developing a career in drylining.
To find out more, watch videos and download BuildBack brochures, click here.
Adoption of offsite construction is growing, and calls for change – in particular Mark Farmer’s report Modernise or Die – have prompted CITB to publish their research report Faster, Smarter, More Efficient: Building Skills for Offsite Construction.
With offsite construction muddying the waters between manufacturing, construction and engineering, there is a need for change in behaviour, attitudes and greater emphasis on digital skills.
The report identifies the different functions required for successful implementation of offsite, the skills that are needed, the gaps in training provision and what the CITB and industry can do to address these challenges.
Read the full report here, or the summary and action plan here.
Our American counterparts, The Association of the Wall and Ceiling Industry, is also reporting that construction firms on the other side of the pond are getting squeezed by increasing materials and labour costs.
The cost of materials used in construction rose markedly faster than the price of completed buildings, according to a new analysis of federal producer price data released on 14 February, by the Associated General Contractors of America. Association officials cautioned that potential restrictions on the use of imported construction materials threaten to drive-up the price of infrastructure, buildings and new homes and apartments.
“Steep price hikes have hit a wide range of key materials used in construction in the past few months, and contractors have received numerous letters from vendors announcing large additional increases in the next month or two,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. “For the most part, contractors cannot pass these costs along on projects already underway, and the data show they are not yet able to price new buildings at a level that reflects their rising materials and labour costs.”
From January 2016 to January 2017, there was a 3.8 percent rise in the producer price index for goods used in construction – the government’s broadest measure of the cost of goods and consumable materials like fuel that go into all types of construction, ranging from highways and other infrastructure to schools, private buildings, apartments and houses. Another government report showed that average hourly earnings for all workers in construction climbed 3.2 percent over the same period, Simonson noted. Meanwhile, the price index for new non-residential buildings – what contractors charge for their work – increased just 1.4 percent.
Among the major contributors to the rise in construction materials costs over the past year were increases in the cost of copper and brass mill shapes (19.9 percent), steel mill products (11.4 percent) and lumber and plywood (3.7 percent). In addition, diesel fuel, which contractors use directly and also pay for through surcharges on the thousands of deliveries to construction sites, jumped by 34.8 percent.
Association officials cited three types of proposals that threaten to drive construction costs even higher: an expansion of restrictive “Buy America” provisions for construction materials to a wider variety of federally funded infrastructure projects; punitive tariffs on imported steel used in many types of buildings; and limitations on Canadian lumber that is commonly used in residential projects.
“If the president and Congress are serious about rebuilding the nation’s ageing infrastructure, the last thing they should do is put in place measures that will needlessly increase the cost of building these projects,” said Stephen E. Sandherr, the association’s chief executive officer. “The best way to rebuild the domestic market for manufacturing key construction materials is to put in place long-term infrastructure funding mechanisms that will reassure manufacturers that there will be steady demand for their products.”
The Construction Products Association has now launched its Procurement Guidance Tool, developed to assist procurers implementing the government’s balanced scorecard approach in construction. The Tool signposts procurers to the different types of evidence that construction product manufacturers can provide in response to procurement questions about a broad range of topics in the balanced scorecard.
This evidence comprises the mature landscape of International and European standards, Publicly Available Specifications (PAS’s), certification schemes and industry initiatives by which the product industry reports its performance. The aim of the Tool is to better align the likely questions that will emerge from procurers as a result of the government rolling out a balanced scorecard approach to all construction, infrastructure, and capital investment projects over £10million. Each new project will need to develop its own balanced scorecard.
Armstrong Ceilings’ annual Grid Off challenge took place at Birmingham’s NEC on 6 April. Of the 18 finalists, 12 companies were FIS members, with New Forest Ceilings just being pipped to the title by Coyle Suspended Ceilings.
Over nine rounds, teams went head-to-head to install a T grid and board-edged 600mm x 600mm mineral tile system in a 7.2m² space to win a pair of Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra James Bond limited edition watches. The runners-up, New Forest Ceilings, won four tickets to watch Anthony Joshua fight Wladimir Klitschko for the WBO super heavyweight world championship at Wembley.
The ceiling installers were shortlisted for their projects as follows:
Bellwood Interiors for new offices in Milton Keynes Carter Ceilings for a new DC Thompson publishing office in Dundee Diespeker (Interiors) for Damers School in Dorchester, Dorset Great Yarmouth Ceilings for Yarmouth Summit offices for start-up businesses Grimes Finishings for the conversion of the former media centre at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park John Atkinson Interiors for Headingley Carnegie Stadium in Leeds New Forest Ceilings for Solent University Peveril Interiors for Bingham Methodist Church in Nottinghamshire Taylor Hart for the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham Top Fix Interiors for Wiltshire College, Chippenham SCI for a waste recycling plant in Derby SCL for the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology in Cambridge
Read more from the day’s event on Armstrong Ceilings‘ live blog: http://www.gridoff.co.uk/
The output of the Scottish economy contracted by 0.2% during the fourth quarter of 2016, according to statistics announced on 5 April by Scotland’s Chief Statistician.
Change in gross domestic product (GDP) is the main indicator of economic growth in Scotland. The latest Gross Domestic Product release, covering the period October to December 2016, shows that total output in the economy contracted by 0.2% compared to the previous three months. On an annual basis, compared to the fourth quarter of 2015, the output of the Scottish economy was flat (0.0% change).
During the fourth quarter of 2016 output in the services industry in Scotland was flat (0.0% change), while production contracted by 0.9% and construction contracted by 0.8%.
Over the calendar year (i.e. 2016 vs 2015), the Scottish economy grew by 0.4%.
Industries which represent a large proportion of the economy or which have big quarterly changes have the most impact on overall GDP. The industry which has had the greatest contribution to change in the output of the Scottish economy in the fourth quarter of 2016 is Production (which accounted for 0.2 percentage points of contraction).
