Now’s the time to get your qualification, says North West Skills Academy

There has never been a better time to become a qualified Green Homes Grant installer, says Samuel Riley, CEO of training provider North West Skills Academy.

His academy was one of 18 successful bids from 29 applicants to receive a chunk of more than £6m made available through the Green Homes Grant Skills Competition.

The aim of the competition, which was run by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), is to make sure tradespeople are equipped and professionally trained in delivering home improvement measures that qualify for the Green Homes Grant.

It is hoped the skills competition will result in more than 5,000 training opportunities.

Samuel explains: “We are an organisation that is committed to supporting the number of skilled suppliers for the Green Homes Grant Scheme and we are very well positioned to respond to the skills competition to expand a skilled, qualified green workforce.

“The NVQ is fully delivered in the workplace and remotely. With full one-to-one support available and the current Green Homes Grant Skills Competition funding, there has never been a better time to become qualified.”

Under the Green Homes Grant scheme homeowners and landlords can fund up to two-thirds of the cost of green home improvements up to £5,000, or 100% of the cost for homeowners on low incomes, up to £10,000.

Measures covered include insulation of walls, floors and roofs, double or triple glazing when replacing single glazing, and low-carbon heating like heat pumps.

The scheme has now been extended until March 2022, providing plenty of opportunities for traders to get the skills to carry out the work.

Become a Green Homes Grant Installer

North West Skills Academy will be offering courses lasting between one and four months at their Manchester base, specialising in:

• External wall insulation (boarding and finishing)
• Cavity wall insulation
• Loft and roof insulation
• Draught-proofing
• Internal wall Insulation
• Insulated framed sections of buildings
• Floor insulation
• Wood preserving and damp-proofing

Samuel adds: “It’s a chance to get your blue skilled Construction Skills Certification Scheme card, comply with PAS 2030 requirements, which is needed to become a Trustmark accredited Green Homes Grant installer and you get the recognition you deserve.”

Simon Ayers, CEO of TrustMark said: “We are delighted that such great organisations have been awarded funding to support the development of the supply chain required, as we transition to sustainable delivery of whole house retrofit to properties in the UK.

“The demand for skilled and competent businesses to undertake the requirements of the new standards and deliver quality to the consumer has never been higher.”

The 18 training organisations providing training through the skills competition, can be found across England, from Penrith and Newcastle in the north to Poole in the south, Epping in the east and Bristol in the west.

For more information and to find a training course near you that is backed by the Green Homes Grant Skills Competition, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/green-homes-grant-skills-training-competition/winning-projects

For more information on the Green Homes Grant visit: www.greenhomesgrant.campaign.gov.uk

The full guidelines for working safely during lockdown can be found here – https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-lockdown-stay-at-home#where-and-when-you-can-meet-in-larger-groups

Find more on Green Homes with Skill Builder.

Construction firm boss Richard Selby is urging businesses to act now to be ready for new trading rules between the UK and EU on 1 January 2021.

The Director and co-founder of Pro Steel Engineering worked with his accountant and used the checklist available on GOV.UK, to make sure the business was prepared for the end of the Transition period on 31 December. He’s now advising others to do the same.

Richard says: “It’s so important to use GOV.UK support. In addition, if working across borders ensure you are aware of additional administration requirements and talk to freight forwarders about the support they can offer.

“We found it helped to look at webinars and reach out to other organisations like the Institute of Directors for support.”

Pro Steel Engineering

Pro Steel Engineering employs 65 staff at its base in Pontypool, where it specialises in structural steelwork fabrication and construction.

Richard’s advice comes as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy continues to update gov.uk/transition with vital information to help companies understand the important actions they need to take to be ready for the start of 2021.

Support includes pre-recorded webinars taking businesses through the changes related to them.

Richard has checked the new rules on importing and exporting goods between the EU and Great Britain from 1 January 2021. He’s also made sure his company applied due diligence to exporting and importing timber from the UK to EU to meet legal harvest requirements.

He adds: “This is something very much front of mind for us, and that we need to create a list of suppliers and customers to be in a good place for the start of 2021”

Further information 

Find webinars to help you understand what actions to take at bit.ly/UKTwebinar

Speak with your lawyer and accountant for more information, or answer questions using the checker tool to generate information tailored to your business, and to sign up for email updates.

See more on Brexit with Skill Builder.

Covers Timber & Builders Merchants has donated more than £15,000 to local hospices after taking part in Christmas Jumper Day.

The staff at the company got into the festive spirit by wearing an array of seasonally inspired sweaters and jumpers in return for a £2.00 donation.

Covers further bolstered funds by making a generous donation of £5 for every transaction completed across its chain of 14 depots on the day.

The hospices to benefit from the funding are St Wilfrid’s in Chichester, Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Care in Farnham, Martlets in Hove, St Peter & St James Hospice in Lewes, Hospice in the Weald in Tunbridge Wells, Countess Mountbatten Hospice Charity in Southampton, St Catherine’s Hospice in Crawley, The Rowans Hospice in Waterlooville and St Barnabas House in Worthing.

The children’s hospices Chestnut Tree House in Arundel, Naomi House & Jacksplace in Winchester, and Demelza Hospice Care in Sittingbourne will also receive funds.

Henry Green, Managing Director of Covers, said:

“This year has been particularly difficult for charities so we are delighted to be supporting hospices in our communities once again with our annual Christmas Jumper Day.

Hospices rely heavily on funding to operate, so we hope this latest donation will help make a difference to the vital work they do taking care of patients and their families.”

See more on charity work with Skill Builder.

The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, the global professional body for supply chain management has launched the new Construction Procurement Competence Tool after the development of a national suite of procurement competence standards following the Grenfell enquiry.

Building a Safer Future

In response to Dame Judith Hackitt’s Building a Safer Future report, it was recognised that poor procurement practices can lead to decisions that compromise all aspects of building and life safety, and across the sector, there was a desire to improve the competence of people involved in procurement activities so that better decisions are taken at all levels of the construction supply chain.

Construction Procurement Competence Tool

The free tool allows users to benchmark themselves and other individuals against the recommended competency framework to understand the level of competency or additional training and skills required to meet these more rigorous standards.

Users select their job role, such as building safety manager, principle contractor, or procurement leader followed by job competencies set against RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) stages 0-7 with the required level indicated against each stage.

The stages cover definition, capabilities and knowledge which are matched to levels in the CIPS global framework highlighting skills and capabilities required in various job roles.

The user then receives a summary of skills and competencies and where there are gaps for improvement. The tool is designed for use by individual contractors and construction professionals, companies and project managers.

CIPS chaired Working Group 11, one of the 13 groups appointed as part of the Competency Steering Group (CSG) following the Hackitt report. The CSG was tasked with the development of a national suite of procurement competence standards required not just amongst builders but associated professions such as architects and surveyors when working on higher risk buildings.

Organisations can map what procurement competency levels are required at each stage of a build, identifying key roles and levels of understanding to support enhanced safety aims. Whole teams can go through the process of assessment.

Duncan Brock CIPS Group Director and chair of the procurement working group, said,

“The free tool is a result of a collaborative project to help support the construction sector to combat its common challenges and reach a balanced approach as the pressures of price, margin and safety remain.

We hope it will give the sector more confidence and knowledge about procurement and build a better future for residents of higher risk buildings.

“The Grenfell tragedy will stick in our minds for many years to come and CIPS is proud to have been part of the work to improve standards to increase competence and ultimately ensure the safety of citizens in their homes.”

More information about the tool.

An Independent committee of experts should scrutinise the economic and technical feasibility of zero-carbon pledges by the CCC, says the Gas Users Organisation, that speaks for the 24 million households that use gas heating.

It would be hugely foolish to consider phasing out natural gas in people’s homes, which is clean, convenient and the cheapest option, in favour of a jam-tomorrow pipe dream which assumes a massive increase in supply of zero-carbon electricity.

Climate Change Committee

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has announced the target, in its new Carbon Budget Document released on 9^th December, that “By the early 2030s … … all boiler replacements in homes in homes and other buildings are low-carbon – largely electric”

To achieve this, the CCC are proposing that the UK could have a zero-carbon electricity supply industry by 2035, including a huge increase in capacity

The Gas Users Organisation doubts whether these targets are achievable, and calls for caution over changes that would disadvantage households who currently use gas for heating.

Gas Users Organisation Technical Director, Andrew Newman, explains:

“These issues are both too important and too complex to be dealt with by the CCC, without a rigorous process of their decisions being challenged. The Gas Users Organisation calls for a separate “red team” committee of independent engineers, industry experts, trades union and economic experts to assess the feasibility and costs of achieving these very challenging objectives. In particular this committee should look at the investment needed to develop a local content supply chain after the BiFab collapse

“The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) are posing very ambitious targets, and we are not confident that they can be achieved, either economically, or in terms of engineering feasibility”.

“There is a huge risk that large scale commitments could be made for decarbonising the heating systems in our homes based upon unrealistic targets for future zero-carbon electricity that are unlikely to be met.

This would involve higher prices, additional costs and inconvenience for households; it would jeopardise jobs in UK supply chains; and destroy the jobs of the gas service engineers right across the country”.

“The CCC is saying that “electricity generation should be fully decarbonised by 2035. That will need to happen while meeting a 50% increase in demand“, and “doubling or even trebling by demand by 2050“. They are proposing that this increase in capacity would allow most homes to be heated by electricity.

“There are a number of problems with this. Firstly, just two years ago, the CCC itself concluded that for fully electrified heating, up to 4 or 5 times as much electricity capacity would be needed compared to today, a much larger increase than they are now estimating.

“Furthermore, the CCC calls for “additional ‘back up’ electricity generation capacity in excess of 100 GW – roughly equivalent to the size of today’s electricity system – could be required to meet electrified heat demand during peak periods.” Peak demand is easily met today by simply drawing more gas from storage.

So, the CCC’s plan even in its own terms is not promising enough capacity to deliver zero-carbon electricity for all our homes. It would be hugely foolish to consider phasing out natural gas in people’s homes, which is clean, convenient and the cheapest option, in favour of a jam-tomorrow pipe dream.

“Secondly, the target of 90 GW of zero-carbon electricity looks very unlikely.  To put the size of the change in context, the new Hinckley Point C new nuclear power will have the capacity to supply 3.2 GW zero carbon emissions electricity.

It’s the only new nuclear station commissioned to date.  Wind farms have the current capacity for 10.4 GW electricity. Solar energy has a capacity of 2.2 GW of electricity. Good progress is being made in the zero-carbon emissions electricity journey, but the most difficult challenges are still ahead of us”.

“Furthermore, the CCC calls for more use of “storage” for electricity, but no details of how this huge engineering challenge would be met. Energy Storage is far from being “shovel ready”.

Both the costs and feasibility of the technology at the required scale are unproven. To put this level of requirement in perspective, there is currently just 4 GW of storage projects in planning, in addition to the just 1 GW of battery storage already in operation

“We also have very serious concerns about the lack of concern about jobs in the supply chain.

There are no UK based facilities to build the 2,700 giant wind turbines and jackets required to deliver 30GW of electricity by 2035. This is 180 turbines and jackets each year every year for the next 15 years. 

The facilities to make just eight jackets at BiFab recently collapsed into administration and both the UK and Scottish governments said that state aid rules prevented them from intervening to save the company”.

“UK manufacturers currently lead the world in gas boilers, and a move to heat pumps would probably lead to them being replaced by imported systems from overseas”.

See more on climate change from Skill Builder.