The Green Deal Skills Alliance, a partnership of SummitSkills, Asset Skills and ConstructionSkills, has secured £1.4m to help employers take advantage of commercial opportunities around the low carbon agenda.

The funding was secured from Government's £61m Employer Investment Fund; a flagship initiative managed by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, which is designed to boost enterprise, jobs and growth. The investment secured in the construction sector will provide financial support for two years - to enable the Green Deal Skills Alliance to build upon work already underway - creating qualifications frameworks and providing on the ground support for firms looking to top up the skills of their workforce and diversify their business during the downturn.

News of the additional funding came after Gregory Barker, Minister of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change announced that the Green Deal has the potential to create up to 100,000 retrofitting jobs in the construction sector by 2020 - making the initiative the largest home improvement scheme since World War Two.


Recently, the Green Deal Skills Alliance embarked on a series of roadshows across the country to help small and medium sized businesses understand the Green Deal and provide business advice and guidance on how to exploit the new market. The new funding will support more of these localised interactions to support industry.

Keith Marshall OBE, Chief Executive of SummitSkills, said: "At a very challenging time for businesses in building services engineering, securing this funding is great news. Now that we're counting down to the launch of the Government's Green Deal initiative in October 2012, preparing the workforce to take advantage of the opportunities it offers will help to secure the future success of our sector.

"Skilled operatives who are able to design, install and maintain environmental technologies will be central to the UK improving the energy efficiency of its homes and achieving its carbon reduction targets. We are excited that this funding will enable us to build upon the success of our on-going work with ConstructionSkills, AssetSkills and all of our partners as we work to equip the right people with the right skills for this opportunity."

Work on the EIF project will begin in 2012 and complete in 2014.

(CD)