IV  ACTIONS - OPEN SECTION

This is an open section to which stakeholders are invited to submit intended actions in their areas, via the website at which the report will be updated, with a review in Autumn 2006 - www.onebigroom.org.uk

B. CRAFT SKILLS TRAINING IN BUILDING CONSERVATION - A PERSONAL OBSERVATION

John Dorrington Ward, Ward & Co. (Building Conservation) Ltd, Gloucestershire

INTRODUCTION

Ward & Co. is an accredited Investor in People. We take craft skills training seriously and run apprenticeships in brick and stone masonry, carpentry, joinery and plasterwork. We agree that there is a skills shortage. Most new starters are unqualified and we have to train them. In order to overcome some of the difficulties, we recruit from abroad and among our staff we have Polish, French, and Portuguese nationals.

We recruit older individuals who are looking for a career change and we use the Qualification by Experience route to give them recognition. Our workforce needs to have an average age of about 40 + to meet the demands of building conservation. Strangely perhaps, we have many craft operatives with University degrees.

We believe that the craft skills shortage hinders our performance and development. The burden to train is very demanding and seriously affects our bottom line and therefore our ability to invest for the future. Once trained, it is difficult to retain staff members. The temptations to go it alone are huge once you have a skill. There are many influences that go to create and deepen the skills shortage and below we list some of those we feel are pertinent.

THE INFLUENCES

Building industry employment

The industry is fractured, with a large number of CIS card holders - about 30 - 50% of the workforce. A clear career path does not exist to take the young from the new build sector into repair and maintenance when they get older. (New build demands energy and speed - repair and maintenance requires rounded knowledge and patience).

Factory production / price of land

Increasingly, house builders need to build quicker as land values increase. The consequent standardisation and factory production mean different skills are required. A simple example is plastering. Almost all modern plastering involves dry board and skim coat work (sometimes not even skim coat). Few modern plasterers have the skills to work on the hard. It is very rare that they can dot and screed and rarer still that they can run mouldings in situ.

Apprenticeship Courses

They exist, but all are geared to the demands of new build. Training is now shorter and many of the basic skills of old are omitted, such as technical drawing.

Perception

The public perception is that work in the building industry is dirty and to be disdained. We find that the quality of young apprentices is low - most have writing and reading difficulties and they struggle with the discipline of work.

The brighter student is presumably encouraged to think about sixth form college and university than a career in a building trade.

CITB Grants

As we pay the CITB levy we are keen to get some of it back. That said, if you are not interested in training, it is far cheaper to pay the levy and not claim.

Most of the grants are geared to young apprentices. To put a young apprentice through 3 years of college costs us £8000. The CITB grant is typically worth £8000 so we break even financially.

However, in order to take on young apprentices we must undertake new build. We cannot give them the experience needed to complete their portfolios if we solely work in building conservation.

BUT young apprentices alone are not the answer. Most of our work-force comes to us when they are older, have experienced other careers or other sections of the building industry, and want to move into something that is steady and interesting.

The CITB grant levels for adult apprentices are not nearly so helpful as those for young apprentices. Typically, adult apprentices have to be paid as craftsmen/women (for life skills brought to their job) and the grants for adult up-skilling are less attractive. Typically these apprentices will cost us £10000 - £12000 to train and the grants will be worth £6000. Therefore we need to invest between £4000 and £6000 for each adult apprentice.

Importantly, it is the adult apprentices who are key to the future of the building conservation, whereas young apprentices are key to the future of new build.

Procurement

We rarely have work more than six months ahead. Sometimes it can be as little as three months. There are many reasons for this, but builders are at the end of the procurement line and any slack that might exist tends to be taken up at the design stage. The builder is expected to be on site as soon as possible.

The exception is grant-aided work, but usually we hear nothing until the grant has been awarded and then there is a panic to get the work done in the lime window or otherwise fair weather. If it isn’t lime, its bats!

Accounting years have the same effect. We are expected to be forward thinking, but requires a leap of faith that we will have the work in the future for us to commit to training.

What we need are some term contracts (eg a set of churches or a number of EH/NT properties to look after) so that we can see work in the years ahead and plan our training schedule with some confidence.

Tender system

Invariably the builder who makes the biggest mistake at tendering will get the work - ie the lowest wins.

Value added tender systems exist, but these tend to be used by a few Government departments for major projects. We have been involved in supposed value added tendering systems, but those running them have not trained themselves to use them properly. What is needed is for proper training of Architects and Surveyors in these tender systems - and some imagination used to seek a proper solution.

Professions

The building professions should be the natural leaders of the building industry. It is doubtful that they are very successful in this role as they are brow-beaten by clients and see their fee income reduce in real terms.

We see that more and more builders are expected to sort out the technical aspects of designs and this passing of responsibility has reduced the status of the professions. Are they in a position any longer to think long term and ring the changes?

The construction side no longer has any influence as the predominance of building firms has declined for sub contract arrangements.

Non-trade activities

The skills problems faced by the industry extend beyond crafts men and women. Estimators, buyers and quantity surveyors are all in short supply. Everyone wants to be a project manager!

We suffer because very few tenders include bills of quantities - so we have do our own take offs and measures. We are permanently stretched to complete tenders.

Yet we still are given only 4 weeks to tender. It deflects us from our activities and costs a lot more to tender - typically £1500 for a job of £100,000.

Really the architect/surveyor should insist the client pays for a quantity surveyor to prepare proper bills of quantities rather than three or four builders each paying a surveyor to do the same job. Our tender costs are in the region of £50 - 70,000 per year. More could be made available for training if this cost were to be reduced.

Value Added Tax

The present VAT regime makes building conservation and all repair and maintenance work more expensive to clients than new build. The 17.5% that could be spent on building product, rather than on tax payment, would make a big difference to the total turnover of businesses. This might influence our confidence about training.

The present VAT regime where new build is positively encouraged and repair and maintenance discouraged has helped the growth of the DIY world and the cash in hand economy. They encourage the one-man band mentality and hinder the development of building companies.

Other influences

To employ young apprentices you have to be willing to prepare separate method statements for all their work on site. This is an onerous paperwork requirement and must discourage many potential employers.

Recent employment legislation has placed great demands on all employers - the ever-increasing number of changes as well as the changes themselves. For example, extra holiday, paternity leave, maternity leave etc - we have had to employ at least two extra people to cover the effects of legislation over the past six years.

Conclusion

It is difficult to prioritise the above influences, but the most important must be the tendering process or procurement. Building Conservation is about careful thought and action - a single mistake, a cut in the wrong place, can wipe out hundreds of years of history. It is lost forever. The people who work in building conservation have to be willing to demand a lot of themselves and to be constantly challenged - short cuts cannot be taken.

The first-past-the post-system of tendering flies in the face of the actual demands of the job. If we are to persist with the system, let us adopt the continental practice of selecting the second-lowest tenderer. Think about it; all tenderers have to be as accurate as possible and if they make a mistake and under-price a repair they will not win the work. It could be very effective and still meet the needs for accountability.

Better still, let us bring the procurement process in line with the common aims of repairing our built heritage for future generations - and maintaining the skills into the future.