Covid-19: CITB chief exec update – 15 April 2020

Good afternoon,

I hope you are keeping safe and well as these days of lockdown continue. Today my update on CITB’s support to industry during COVID-19 focuses on how we have been gathering employer feedback to help improve the products and services we have available during these tough times.

Acting on feedback  

During this time many of you will have been contacted by CITB’s Partnership or Apprenticeships teams. I can assure you that this feedback directly influences the changes and developments we have carried out over the past weeks. 

We’ve received positive feedback about the interventions we’ve made including the levy suspension. We are continuing to review all plans and levels of support, as well as talk to Government about what support is needed by the sector during this crisis and beyond.

The CITB Nations Councils continue to meet and provide our Board with vital sectors intelligence and suggestions. The first meeting in this latest round took place this morning in Wales, digitally, and we will see the England and Scotland councils meet in the next few weeks and look forward to hearing their collective voice.

We receive regular feedback from employers on refresher and renewal courses. CITB has enabled SMSTS and SSSTS refresher courses through remote learning – find your local Site Safety Plus training centre through the SSP course locator. We are also reviewing a number of standards that will support training through remote learning.

CITB’s re-sizing

As previously confirmed and like many businesses, we are having to temporarily reduce the size of the organisation during this period, in line with our activity. We are in the process of reducing staffing levels by approximately 50% to ensure we maintain a level of service to our customers, while protecting industry funds as much as possible.

We are aware many of you will have taken similar steps in recent weeks and for us this comes at the end of an extremely busy few weeks of activity, where many colleagues in the CITB team have worked tirelessly to make possible many of the support measures I have previously shared, and as quickly as we could.

In summary, I’d like to thank you for your feedback which we welcome as this has helped shape our immediate response.  I would also like to thank all those colleagues within CITB that have made it happen.  I confirm we will keep you updated with how things are continuing to develop in the coming days and weeks.

CITB’s COVID-19 updates page is being refreshed daily and includes information on a range of subjects, including grants, funding and the National Construction Colleges. 

You can also read the range of support measures made available to UK businesses and employees by the UK Government.

Kind wishes

Sarah Beale

Chief Executive