The CIOB Policy Team Newsletter - November 2022

November with the CIOB Policy team

Welcome to the November edition of CIOB’s policy team newsletter.

This edition includes our response to the Autumn Statement, an overview of CIOB’s participation in the Department for Education's T-Level Action Group, an update on CIOB’s public affairs work in 2022 and information about the recently released Building Inspector Competence Framework.

If you have anything you would like to share, we would love to hear from you, so please do get in touch at [email protected].

One thing you need to do...Read our comment on the Autumn Statement 2022

CIOB reacted to the Chancellor’s recent Autumn Statement and what it meant for the built environment sector:

Eddie Tuttle, Director of Policy, External Affairs and Research at the CIOB, said; “While the cost of living and energy crisis are rightly priorities for Government, the role of the construction industry in addressing both of them is, in our view, being underestimated and this has been evident in today’s autumn statement.

“We look forward to seeing the Government’s plans for the funding it has today allocated to improving energy efficiency and hearing more of the detail, which is currently lacking. Representatives from the built environment must be included in the Taskforce the Chancellor has announced if any plans to meet energy efficiency targets are to be successful, and we would welcome the opportunity to share our expertise.

“The built environment sector is without doubt, pivotal in reducing carbon emissions, not only during the construction of new buildings and critical infrastructure, but also in the retrofitting of existing homes to make them more energy efficient. Without this, government will not meet its target of reducing the carbon emissions from buildings by 15 per cent by 2030 and reduce household energy bills, which continue to be one of the biggest concerns for the UK population.

“Continuing investment and forward planning from a stable government is critical to enable the construction sector to properly plan ahead with confidence and play its part in addressing net zero, levelling up and ultimately the cost of living and energy issues faced by millions.”

Socially Responsible Public Procurement in Wales event

On 15 November CIOB hosted its Socially Responsible Public Procurement event at St. David’s hotel in Cardiff. The event featured key stakeholders to discuss the forthcoming Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill, which seeks to embed fair work and social value into publicly procured construction projects over £2m.

Attendees heard from key stakeholders and expert speakers, including:

• Hannah Blythyn MS, Deputy Minister for Social Partnership at Welsh Government
• Dr. Sue Hurrell, Head of Fair Work Procurement at Welsh Government
• Daisie Rees-Evans, Policy and Public Affairs Officer – Midlands at CIOB
• Stephen Lawrence, Honorary Treasurer at Institute of Civil Engineers Cymru

An interesting Q&A and wider discussion session followed an interesting set of presentations, where members questioned the purpose and practicalities of the Bill, and how it interacted with current legislation like the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act. Questions were also raised as to how the Bill’s success could be ensured at every stage of the procurement process and along the supply chain as well as about the role the wider construction sector has to play in ensuring social value in all projects moving forward.

This event comes after extensive engagement between CIOB, Welsh Government, and other key stakeholders to develop contract clauses that will form part of the Bill’s guidance. We have also responded to Senedd consultations on the Bill, and look forward to continued engagement with the Deputy Minister, her team, and wider Welsh Government.

CIOB joins the DfE's 'T-Level Action Group' for construction pathways

The Department for Education (DfE) is currently taking steps to strengthen the skills supply pipeline in the construction sector, building on the commitments of the Skills for Jobs white paper, which sets out reforms to post-16 technical education and training, to support people to develop the skills needed to get good jobs, and improve national productivity.

T Levels are a key part of that ambition. These are two-year technical programmes for 16–19-year-olds, designed with employers and aligned to apprenticeship occupational standards. One T Level is equivalent in size to three A Levels, and comprise a mix of practical tasks, projects, and exams. The programme includes a mandatory 45-day industry placement to give students experience applying their theoretical knowledge to practical activities in the workplace. Upon completion, progression options include skilled employment, further study, or a higher apprenticeship (T Levels attract UCAS points in line with A Levels).

Through research and stakeholder feedback, DfE is aware that there are numerous challenges that could hinder student progression and impact the delivery of industry placements. To better understand these challenges and develop solutions to overcome them, the Department has recently established “T Level Action Groups” across most T Levels, including Onsite Construction and Building Services Engineering for Construction. These groups bring together a diverse mix of industry experts and present an opportunity for the Department to draw on the expertise of industry, and for industry to work directly with DfE on T Level policy.

On 19 October 2022, the Onsite Construction T Level Action Group convened for the first time. Participants included representatives from CIOB, NHCS, BWD, NFRC, ANWTI, CITB, Bellway, Wilmott Dixon, Build UK, Balfour Beatty, Bam, and Mace amongst others. The key aims and objectives of the Action Group, are to:

1. Review and amplify programme content and structure to ensure industry needs are met.
2. Guarantee progression pathways into skilled employment, apprenticeships, further and/ or higher education upon students’ completion of T Level.
3. Increase awareness of T Levels, through better communication and engagement with employers, teachers, parents, and students, with a particular focus on engaging the SME market.
4. Improve the delivery of industry placements to ensure supply meets industry demand, and guarantee learners gain valuable onsite experience.

CIOB is pleased to be part of the review into T Levels. We recognise that there are serious inadequacies with our vocational and technical education landscape, as highlighted by the Sainsbury Review, and we support efforts to address these inadequacies.

Regional overviews 

• Ireland

November saw the annual Ireland membership engagement meeting. Members were given an update on the various policy initiatives ongoing in Ireland, and questions were taken from the floor on potential areas for development in 2023.

• Northern Ireland

CIOB’s long awaited Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) event took place on 10 November. Run in partnership with the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland the event was a blend of policy, personal interest stories from the sector, and advice to firms as to how they can begin their EDI journey. CIOB CEO Caroline Gumble was joined by Northern Ireland’s Chief Commissioner for Equality and CITB NI CEO Barry Neilson in opening the event.

The 2022 CIOB Northern Ireland Election Manifesto recommended that the next Northern Ireland Assembly introduce measures to facilitate employers to sign-up to sector-led Equality Diversity and Inclusion Charters. This event followed upon that recommendation and speakers outlined the importance of EDI in the sector, shared best practice, and allowed businesses to sign up to the CIOB EDI Charter.

Having engaged across the political and industry spectrum in Northern Ireland on the basis of CIOB’s work on Building Safety and Quality in England, CIOB was delighted to be invited to join the new Northern Ireland Building Safety Expert Panel. CIOB’s first session took place on 16 November, and the Institute sits alongside senior civil servants, ministerial representatives, academics, and policy makers on the group.

• Scotland

The policy and public affairs team’s engagement on our recent discussion paper, Levelling the playing field, not Scotland’s built environment: a case for retrofit over demolition? has seen further support from MSPs from the SNP, Scottish Labour and Scottish Conservative parties. Further, Paul McLennan MSP has raised a motion to Scottish Parliament to recognise the paper, calling for Scottish Parliament to adopt the position that more work is needed to decarbonise Scotland’s built environment at the scale and pace required to achieve net zero targets, and as such, welcome the proposals put forward in the report.  At present, 11 Members have endorsed the motion. As the paper has received positive, cross-party engagement, the policy team will continue to liaise with MSPs in the hopes of garnering further support on the motion.

• Wales

The Welsh Government has recently launched two consultations to which CIOB is currently drafting responses. The first is on engaging the public on climate change and renewable energy, and how to facilitate a behavioural shift to meet net zero targets. The second is on the Building Inspector Competence Framework (BICoF) in Wales, which is released in tandem with a UK Government equivalent (see the 'if you made it this far' section below).

CIOB and the press

Please see below a run down of CIOB's press activities for November:

• A comment piece from CIOB’s Eddie Tuttle in response to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement was published in full or in part by several construction trade media outlets including Construction News, Construction Management and the Construction Index. It was also published on the Politics Home website, which is widely read by MP’s and their teams.
• CIOB featured on the front page of PBC Today magazine in November and had a column by David Barnes, CIOB Policy & Public Affairs Manager, on the need for a national retrofit strategy published inside.
• We continue to have a monthly column published on the Scottish Construction Now website. November’s was written by Jocelyne Fleming, CIOB Policy & Public Affairs Officer - Scotland, and focused on Scotland’s circular economy. Read the column here.
• Construction trade media also reported on CIOB’s inaugural EDI conference which took place on November 15. A journalist from Construction Wave online joined the conference and published a detailed Q&A with one of the speakers after the event. Media Relations Manager, Becky Trotman, is in discussions with the publication about CIOB having a regular slot on the website for news, interviews and opinion pieces.
• Looking ahead to December, the editor of Scottish Construction Now is set to meet and interview CIOB CEO, Caroline Gumble, at the Scottish Culture Change roadshow and Caroline is also due to take part in a Q&A with Building Australia magazine for their January edition. Becky contacted the magazine using the annual Members Forum event in Australia as a starting point for an introduction. Becky is also due to hold introduction calls in December with three construction trade publications covering Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Public affairs update - 2022

2022 has been a bumper year for CIOB’s policy and public affairs team. Since the start of the year we have grown as a team, welcoming new policy & public affairs officers from across the regions and devolved nations. With a larger team, comes a larger raft of successes and key wins! We wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the great work of our officers in promoting CIOB and the excellence of the built environment:

• Throughout 2022 the team has met with elected officials from across the political spectrum. This has included over 15 meetings with MPs, Peers, members of the Welsh Senedd and members of the Scottish government to talk about CIOB’s priorities including EDI, levelling up, procurement, skills as well as our recently released research reports.
• This year, CIOB has received numerous mentions both in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Some of these include the second reading of the Building Safety Act in the House of Lords, in a report produced by the House of Commons research team titled New Build Housing: Construction Defects and the follow up report New-Build Housing: Construction Defects – issues and solutions (England). The team’s work was also recently name checked during the second reading of the Carbon Emissions (Buildings) Private Members Bill.
• Another key workstream this year has been to build and maintain relationships with key organisations to further CIOB’s ability to influence and shape policy making across the UK and Ireland. Some of the key wins in this area include being invited to attend a meeting of the Housing and Planning All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) and being asked to contribute towards a discussion on the proposed planning reforms. Furthermore, we joined the Welsh Senedd’s Cross Party Group on Fuel Poverty & Energy Efficiency, and was invited to attend the SME House Builders APPG mini conference and subsequent roundtable event in Westminster. Crucially, we also established a regular working relationship with the Health & Safety Executive to assist in forming their rules & regulations for the new roles created in the Building Safety Act and was invited to sit on the Scottish Government’s Cladding Stakeholder Group.
• One more key win to highlight this year has been some of CIOB’s successful events. This year we hosted a Parliamentary event on Diversity in Construction, hosted by Shadow Attorney General, Emily Thornberry MP. The team also hosted a roundtable event alongside the Wessex & Channel Islands Hub with local MP Caroline Noakes. Lastly, the team hosted a number of interesting events at both Labour and Conservative Party Conference.
• Alongside our work with political and industry stakeholders the team has been busy launching or publishing key pieces of work to change the industry for the better. These have included the launch of our Northern Ireland Manifesto, the much-anticipated Value Toolkit and the publication of our research piece, Covid-19 and Construction: Learning lessons to strengthen the construction industry.

If you made it this far...Help form our response to the Building Inspector Competence Framework (BICoF) consultations

Building control professionals and private sector building control organisations will have to register with the BSR in order to perform building control work in England and Wales. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in England and the Welsh Government are both consulting on the Building Inspector Competence Framework (BICoF).

CIOB will be looking to respond to both consultations, further information about the HSE consultation can be found here and the Welsh Government consultation here. If you would like to contribute to our response, or have any views on either consultation, then please contact [email protected].

Separately, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC) are consulting on the Building Safety Levy and further information can be found here.

Thank you for reading this month’s update from the CIOB policy team. We will be back in your inbox next month with more information about what the team is up to, what is going on in Parliament and built environment news to look out for.

All the best,

The CIOB policy team