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MPs urge government to do more on apprenticeships
The BMF attended a short debate in Parliament on T-Levels and Apprenticeships
in England. MPs pressed the Government to do far more to improve the promotion and uptake of vocational training.
MPs urged the Junior Education Minister, Janet Daby MP, to address the lack of balanced careers advice in schools. Without good advice, the risk is young people go for a career that proves to be the wrong choice. Many MPs who took part agreed that there needs to be parity of esteem between academic education and vocational training to tackle the misperception that university is the main route to rewarding opportunities.
Fears were voiced that this parity may be harder to achieve with the introduction of Skills England. Damian Hinds MP, criticised
ministers’ plans to introduce Skills England as an executive agency within the Department for Education, arguing its proximity to ministers risked “eroding” public confidence in technical education standards.
Several MPs shared insights from FE colleges to highlight further challenges - such as uncertainty over course offerings, the lack of flexibility in the Apprenticeship Levy, and the need for tailored qualifications that satisfy students and local employers. It is incumbent on the Government to do much more to address these issues. At the BMF, we are working to boost the workforce through our member-led Apprenticeship Pledge - a drive to employ 15,000 apprentices across the membership by 2030. If you would like to sign the pledge or find out more about the initiative, contact Marianna Peet at
marianna.peet@
bmf.org.uk.
BMF Shortlisted for three industry Awards
The BMF (Builders Merchants Federation) has been shortlisted in three categories of the prestigious Trade Association Forum (TAF) Awards 2025,
the leading awards for the UK association sector.
The BMF is shortlisted in the Sector Representation and Member Engagement categories and for the Event of the Year (under 500 attendees) for its Top 100 Young Achievers celebration. Founded in 1997, the Trade Association Forum encourages the development and sharing of best practice among UK trade bodies and promotes the role of effective trade organisations to government and industry. Their
annual Awards, which are supported by the Department for Business and Trade, recognise and reward the best and the brightest of the trade association sector. BMF CEO John Newcomb said: “We are constantly striving to ensure our members gain value from their membership and entering awards such as these enables us to measure our professionalism and achievements against our peers. We are honoured and delighted that the BMF’s work on behalf of members has been acknowledged by TAF.”
The Award winners will be announced on 27 February 2025 at a ceremony in London.
January 2025
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net BMF revamps its Business Plus range
As part of its service to members, the BMF has made available a carefully selected range of third-party services at market competitive costs for some years now. These services were all previously gathered together under the ‘Business Plus’ brand moniker. Services include:
• Transport Compliance • Safety Solutions • Employment Law • Energy Cost Saving • Specialist Insurance • Managing Payments The services have now been reviewed, in many cases with improvements made, and they are all now being rebranded as BMF Business Services. All of the services are carefully sourced to provide expertise at a competitive cost to support those critical business areas that we know many of our members in the building materials sector
can struggle with.
All Business Services providers have committed to offering ‘something extra’ to BMF members and, in most cases, this is a FOC Survey or Audit of the member’s current arrangements with recommendations as to how these could be improved and cost saved. All members are entitled to claim this free review which could save your business a significant amount of money. For more details, if you are a BMF member ask your regional manager or usual BMF contact to put you touch with the service provider.
Latest housing supply figures for England
The BMF has seen the latest Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government figures on the net additional dwellings covering 2023-2024 in England. Total net housing supply increased by 221,070 - a 6% decrease on the previous year. This is broken down as: • 198,610 newly-built homes • 21,590 homes gained from changing use from non-residential to residential
• 4,360 from conversions between houses to flats • 1,900 from other sources like caravans, house-boats, etc. offset by 5,390 demolitions to give 221,070 net additional dwellings.
9,592 of the net additions were completed using permitted
development rights - when full planning permission is not required. 767 of those were for new build homes; the remaining 8,825 were from a change of use - most commonly the conversion of former office spaces. By region, the highest level of net additions per 1,000 dwellings was in the East of England. The lowest was in the North East - as has been the case each year since 2017 - with the exception of 2022-2023 when Yorkshire and The Humber had the lowest number.
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