Green skills academy gets £3m
Employers in the building services engineering sector are set to benefit from a new national skills academy that will co-ordinate skills training in design, installation and maintenance of environmental technologies, according to the sector skills council SummitSkills.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson announced approval for the bid, which was led by SummitSkills on behalf of employers in the m&e sector. The £3m Building Services Engineering Green Skills Academy is expected to play a key role in helping businesses access the training and skills they will need "to meet future increased demand for the installation of renewable and environmental technologies in the UK", the skills council said.
This announcement came at the same time that the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, in its first National Strategic Skills Audit, highlighted the critical role the building services engineering sector will play in the installation of the UK’s low carbon infrastructure and the need for the sector to change and improve its skills to meet this challenge.
Keith Marshall OBE, chief executive of SummitSkills said: “The creation of a Building Services Engineering Green Skills Academy is a critical step forward for the sector.
"Future jobs and employment in the sector depend on the ability of businesses and employers to develop the skills to deal with the task of fitting the environmental technologies which will be commonplace as the UK meets its commitments to the low carbon agenda," he added.
"The new Green Skills Academy will play a key role in ensuring that this skills capability is developed and that building services engineering can become more proactive in promoting the green agenda to consumers and acting as a trailblazer for green skills.”
The worrying shortage of appropriate skills has been highlighted by the M&E Sustainability committee as the sector's potential Achilles' heel in its bid to play a leading role in the delivery of the low carbon economy. And chief construction adviser Paul Morrell has estimated that the retrofit of existing buildings alone could lead to the creation of 65,000 jobs.