Memorandum submitted by the Federation
of Master Builders
1. The Federation of Master Builders (FMB)
is the largest employers' body for small and medium sized firms
in the construction industry, and with 12,000 members is
the recognised voice of small and medium sized builders. The FMB
is committed to promoting excellent standards in craftsmanship,
and assisting builders to improve levels of building performance
and customer service.
2. Key Recommendations to the Government
to Stimulate Green Jobs in the Building Sector:
— Create a new market in retrofitting existing
homes by developing and implementing a clear delivery plan so
that manufacturers and suppliers can invest early and with confidence
in the development of the necessary supply chains.
— Provide detailed advice and information
to householders about the entire process from start to finish
about making homes greener and more energy efficient to help create
the demand for "green builders".
— Introduce a range of fiscal incentives
such as stamp duty or council tax rebates, a cut in VAT to 5 per
cent for on property refurbishment, and introduce low interest
rate loans and grants to stimulate significant additional spending
on domestic energy efficiency in the UK's housing stock.
— Develop a strategy for the integration
of skills in a "whole home" target driven refurbishment
process.
— Consider the need for "buildability"
when proposing innovation and change in established practices
among SME construction firms.
3. INTRODUCTION
3.1 Few now doubt that climate change and
its impact on the world is one, if not, the most important challenge
of our time. How we respond to this challenge is key to ensuring
we leave the world in a better and more sustainable condition
for future generations. The Government's commitment to reduce
carbon emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 and by 80 per
cent by 2080 set the benchmarks for the UK to develop a low
carbon economy. The challenge to meet these ambitious targets
requires a fundamental shift in thinking and practice not least
in how we tackle the need to deliver a low carbon built environment.
Given that buildings contribute nearly 40 per cent of the
UK's total carbon emissions and the fact that 85 per cent
of the UK housing stock will still be standing in 2050, builders
have a key role to play in rising to the challenge.
4. CREATING A
MARKET FOR
GREEN JOBS
AND SKILLS
IN THE
CONSTRUCTION SECTOR
4.1 The FMB is committed to working with
government on developing policies to achieve its environmental
aims but such policies need to be rooted in practicability because,
otherwise, they are doomed to fail. Key to their success will
be measures that promote, develop, and create new markets in which
builders can respond to meet the new demands for greener and more
energy efficient buildings. Recent research carried out for the
FMB by the Environmental Change Institute at the University of
Oxford reveals that building firms, product manufacturers and
suppliers could stand to tap into a new market worth between £3.5 and
£6.5 billion per year if the UK developed policies,
skills programmes, and financial incentives to upgrade our existing
housing stock to make it greener and more energy efficient. However,
to create this new market to upgrade Britain's housing stock a
stronger policy signal than that outlined in the Government's
recent Heat and Energy Saving Strategy consultation paper is needed
to start a process of innovation, skills development, and capacity
building in the construction industry. The stakeholders involved
in refurbishment are quite different from those involved in new
house-building, with the smaller businesses in the construction
industry being typically involved in repair, maintenance and improvement.
Over £23 billion per year is spent on repair, maintenance
and improvement works to existing housing, and much of this is
a missed opportunity in terms of low-carbon refurbishment.
4.2 Additional incentives, and support for
new financing arrangements for retrofitting measures, are essential
if the Government is serious about developing a green economy
and meeting its carbon reduction targets for 2020 and 2050.
Without such measures, neither target will be readily achieved.
In addition it needs to be augmented by a large-scale training
programme in energy efficient building skills as current capacity
within the industry is not sufficient to cope with the challenge
ahead. At a time when unemployment figures are at their highest
for well over a decade, this would provide much needed stimulus
for the labour market. To achieve its aims the Government needs
to set out a range of practical financial incentives and without
these it is difficult to see how much progress can be made in
the short term. Fiscal measures we would like the Government to
consider as part of a wider "policy package" include
tax incentives such as stamp duty or council tax rebates; a cut
in VAT to 5% on property refurbishment; and low interest rate
loans and grants to stimulate significant additional spending
on domestic energy efficiency in the UK's housing stock.
5. TRAINING AND
SKILLS
5.1 Skills provision for the UK economy
is divided between 25 industry-led Sector Skills Councils
(SSCs), working within a skills policy framework that is the preserve
of the Learning and skills Council (LSC) in England (and other
bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). The relevant
SSC for construction is ConstructionSkills (which is itself a
partnership between the three separate organisations: CITB-ConstructionSkills,
Construction Industry Council (CIC), and CITB Northern Ireland).
The SSCs are largely directed by employers' needs so innovation
in the national skills curriculum typically comes about when employers
perceive a need.
5.2 The structure for raining and apprenticeships
comprises the National Occupational Standards (NOS), which are
written by SSCs and define the development of individual qualifications—the
Scottish Vocational Qualifications and National Vocational Qualifications
(S/NVQs)—by Awarding Bodies (such as City & Guilds,
Edexcel).It is these S/NVQ courses which are taught at further
education colleges and, for apprentices, through working work
based training. The skill sets of traditionally defined tradespeople
needs to be expanded so that they understand enough of the low
carbon refurbishment agenda to play their part effectively. This
is likely to include a better understanding of how the interaction
of different trades on-site can lead to loss of overall building
performance (for example, airtightness can be compromised if wet
plaster is stopped at the height of the skirting boards instead
of reaching floor level; the performance of vapour barriers and
insulation materials can be compromised by inaccurate installation
and subsequent drilling of holes for pipes, ducts, wires and recessed
light fittings). In relation to the installation of LZCs, the
relevant SSC is Summit Skills, which has identified these new
technologies as key to the future of mechanical nad electrical
building services, and begun a process of setting NOS for training
on the installation of LZCs starting with a review of the short
courses nad other forms of training that have emerged during the
early period of market development. This work confirms a widely
held observation that innovation in skills and training does not
start with S/NVQs but with short courses. Developing short courses
into S/NVQs is an important part of mainstreaming the capacity
to deliver new services.
5.3 The traditional focus of training has
been on traditionally defined trades (plumbing, plastering etc)
but the challenge of the new LZC technologies is to move towards
training requiring elements of several traditional trades, as
well as new competencies—the so called multi-skilling agenda.
For a whole-home refurbishment that incorporates building works
(for example, wall insulation, replastering) as well as energy
systems design, the multi-skilling challenge is greater and includes
a respect of project management (for example, optimal ordering
of works on-site) as well as integrating demand reduction measures
with energy supply technologies ( for example, working out how
much heating a well insulated property will require nad sourcing
heating system technology to match) This represents an additional
shift of emphasis away from trades and specific technologies to
an integrated "whole home" refurbishment focus, including
some technical understanding of energy systems and building physics.
6. BUILDING CAPACITY
IN THE
BUILDING SECTOR
TO DELIVER
LOW CARBON
REFURBISHMENT
6.1 For SME building tradespeople to develop
green skills the sector's capacity to do this kind of work needs
to be developed, almost from scratch. Experience of our members
reveals that work to build capacity in the sector needs to take
account of established custom and practice otherwise the endeavour
will result in rejection by most practitioners. This insight is
captured in the idea of "buildability"—a term
intended to capture the reality of how builders operate and the
fact that, whenever refurbishment is carried out, the contractors
have to be confident of their ability to do the work and achieve
satisfactory results, both for themselves and for their clients.
If a low-carbon refurbishment strategy can be devised in such
a way that it takes account of the need for "buildability",
then the strategy has the greatest chance of acceptance by the
SME construction sector. Without it, it is likely to be ignored
or subverted on the ground.
6.2 Key elements of the "buildability"
idea are that building work needs to be made up of products and
methods that have all of the following characteristics:
— Practical—solutions need to be
relatively simple and quick to implement.
— Replicable—a refurbishment package
needs to be something that can be installed many times over by
the general population of installers, rather than being the preserve
of some kind of elite.
— Affordable—unit costs may well
come down over time and can be influenced by policy, but there
is no point in promoting items at any given time which are out
of reach of a viable market.
— Reliable—products and systems need
to work well and be robust.
— Sellable—the costs and benefits
to both customer and installer need to be readily understood.
— Available—specialist products that
take weeks to order will not find favour among the mainstream:
developing product supply chains is key.
— Guarantee-able—installers make
their reputation on delivering things that work and, conversely,
will abandon products or methods which lead to repeated call-backs
and complaints.
— Profitable—firms need to be able
to make a living from it.
6.3 Where new products are needed to help
meet the low-carbon refurbishment agenda, the key stakeholders
in addition to builders are the manufacturers and suppliers. Where
new supply chains need to be developed, the key to success is
a strong long-term policy signal from government. This will stimulate
investment and strategic business developments, both among existing
players in the market and among potential new market entrants.
May 2009
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