For the first time, the building services engineering sector in England has a set of integrated flexible apprenticeship frameworks to safeguard standards and enhance the quality of services across the electrotechnical, heating and ventilating, plumbing, and refrigeration and air conditioning industries.

The development is the culmination of three years' work by SummitSkills, the sector skills council for the BSE sector, to modernise the frameworks for each industry so that apprenticeships reflect the current and future needs of employers and the market place. Now the Skills Funding Agency has confirmed that funding is available for the five frameworks developed by SummitSkills, which unify approaches to training apprentices across the four industries and incorporate environmental technologies in each for the first time.

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Each framework contains individual pathways for occupations within the sector’s industries. They also include summaries of the qualifications, which means employers can see the content of each apprenticeship within the framework.

Chief Executive of SummitSkills Keith Marshall OBE said: "Congratulations to all those who contributed to this huge piece of work, both from within SummitSkills and from the BSE sector. It has been time invested wisely, as these new frameworks provide employers with easy routes to developing the high quality operatives that they need. The environmental element of each of the frameworks in particular will help BSE employers who may be wondering how best to respond to the growing demand for technologies to reduce carbon emissions over the next few years."

(CD/GK)