What does the future hold for environmental training?
The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) announced last month highlighted the governments’ commitment to reducing the UKs carbon footprint. Major new reforms and investments in low carbon technologies will help position the UK at the forefront of the transition to a low carbon economy, but it is likely that the building services engineering sector will hold most responsibility for the installation and maintenance of such technology.
If the sector is to meet the expectations set by government, employers and employees need to ensure they have the relevant skills to work with renewable technologies such as solar photovoltaic, solar thermal and heat pumps.
At SummitSkills we have been working to ensure the sector is ready to cope with the increase in environmental technology demand and with the commitments made by the Government. It is now vital that the sector grasps this opportunity.
With households able to improve the energy efficiency of their homes at no upfront cost and repaying expenditure simply through the savings they make on their energy bills, there will be more demand for qualified operatives to advise on, install and maintain household technology. Added to this, a total of £5.6 billion of support and increased expenditure through existing support mechanisms to households and businesses investing in renewable heat measures will further increase the demand for fully trained staff.
SummitSkills has provided the infrastructure for the sector to succeed through the provision of qualifications, identifying standards and lobbying the Government to ensure any funding goes to qualified training providers. However this alone is not enough. Without the support and take up of employers the environmental advantages could be lost.
We are pleased with the announcement of a Green Skills Bank, which supports the Governments determination to move to a low carbon future. Likewise, the plan to increase funding for adult apprentices is something that SummitSkills fully supports and has in the past been fighting to introduce. It will, however, be a while before we see the full impact of these changes and there is yet more information to come.
SummitSkills this year gained approval for the development of a £3m National Skills Academy for Environmental Technologies that will transform the ability of businesses in the sector to meet the future increased demand for the installation of renewable and environmental technologies in the UK. It is our understanding that the CSR will not have an effect on the Skills Academy at this time and we still aim to launch this in early 2011.
ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE |135|
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