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One of the country’s largest housing associations is considering bidding to run one or more of the government’s new construction skills academies.
Sovereign Housing Association has told Inside Housing it is mulling a bid for funding from the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and the Department for Education (DfE) to develop an academy.
Last month, Inside Housing exclusively revealed that the government is preparing to back the creation of “between 10 and 20 academies” around the country to help tackle the construction industry’s skills crisis.
Anne Milton, the government minister for skills and apprenticeships, had previously told parliament that bidding would open in April, but this has not happened yet and the DfE could not confirm a new date.
The CITB’s website says that bids for the National Retraining Scheme – the source of these funds – will open in “spring/summer 2018”.
Jon Fisher, head of communities at 55,000-home Sovereign, said: “We believe we have a strong employment and training offer for our residents, which includes working with housebuilders to create more work and apprentice opportunities in construction.
“But we’re currently looking at ways we can have even more of an impact and so are interested in exploring the idea of construction academies. Not only could it be a great opportunity to learn a trade, it’s really important that we invest in our future workforce in order to build the homes we need in the coming years.”
London’s largest housing association, L&Q, could also be interested in running academies. Chief executive David Montague told Inside Housing: “It’s definitely a conversation that we will be having. There’s a conversation for us to have with the mayor in London, with London boroughs, with the local authorities where we work, with the skills academies.
“There are a whole load of people involved in this area and it’s so important that we don’t make it more complicated than it already is. We would be very happy to engage with these academies in that spirit, so that the nation can have a more joined-up approach to construction skills.”