Construction union UCATT have warned that the potential privatisation of ConstructionSkills would be a disaster for apprenticeship training.

The news that the ConDem Government is intending to privatise ConstructionSkills was contained in a leaked list of quangos, which is set to be abolished, merged or privatised, and which appeared in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

ConstructionSkills is the commercial name for the Construction Industry Training Board. The CITB is a Sector Skills Council (LSC), which provides training to the construction industry. The body is already very heavily employer dominated. Unlike the vast majority of LSCs the CITB funding comes predominantly from a training levy, which is paid by construction companies and workers.

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Alan Ritchie, General Secretary, of construction union UCATT, said: "The idea that ConstructionSkills should be privatised is utter lunacy. Rather than looking to sell off such bodies the Government should be concentrating on ensuring that there is a far higher level of quality construction apprentice training. Inadequate skills training exacerbates the problems of a growing skills gap and an ageing workforce."

In recent years UCATT has had to campaign to ensure that Construction Skills continues to offer full craft based apprenticeships, which allow apprentices to achieve an NVQ 3. The employer dominated organisation has on several occasions attempted to water down its training programme, making courses more college based and breaking the link between an employer and an apprentice.

The Construction industry currently requires 35,000 new entrants every year. When the industry was booming that figure was in excess of 70,000. Last year ConstructionSkills only found placements for 6,462 apprentices.

(CD)