Industry heavyweight Mark Farmer will lead a major review of the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), six years after the previous government-commissioned inquiry led to a major overhaul of the skills body.
Farmer, a productivity advocate and chief executive of Cast Consultancy who wrote the widely cited 2016 article Modernize or Die, will work with officials to assess the effectiveness of the CITB and its organization, the Training Board of Engineering Construction Industry, meet the needs of their sectors. .
The farmer will be responsible for considering the ongoing need of the body and the effectiveness of the skill rate that funds it.
Commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE), the review will consider the organisations’ operating models, governance, accountability models and impact.
The DfE will shortly be seeking evidence from parties, including employers, in the area of the existing CITB levy, as well as trade bodies and construction industry representative groups.
The latest review follows a 2017 study led by former construction adviser Paul Morrell, which called for sweeping change to make the CITB more focused, efficient and responsive.
Following this review, the CITB revealed a new strategy to become a simpler and more streamlined organisation.
His problems did not go away, however. The CITB has continued to come under intense scrutiny, with a House of Lords committee last year urging ministers to “consider alternative models”.
Education regulator Ofsted last month found CITB “requires improvement” and focused “too much” on contract compliance rather than quality of delivery.
The first recommendations for the latest report are expected to be made to ministers by the end of the summer with a final report by the end of the year. The government will consider the findings and then respond.
