Archive for the ‘Job Training’ Category

Just before Christmas, Housing Minister John Healey announced that communities across the North and Midlands will share £311m this year to boost work already underway to transform homes and regenerate communities.

Today's housing funding will also protect and create over 1,000 jobs and apprenticeships in the construction industry.

It is on top of a total of £1.7 billion funding to build new homes that John Healey has announced since June – supporting the construction industry through the recession, creating jobs and apprenticeships and helping to tackle the shortage of affordable homes.  This funding has helped councils build more homes and kick-start stalled housebuilding projects, including over £76m across the twelve Pathfinder areas.

Since 2002 the Housing Market Renewal programme has tackled severe housing market failure in parts of the North and Midlands, in places where prices had collapsed and there was widespread abandonment. 

£2.2bn has been invested so far in regenerating towns across the 12 Pathfinders, including refurbishing almost 60,000 homes for around 140,000 people. 

This next wave of funding will help renovate a further 6,500 homes for around 15,000 people.

Housing Minister John Healey said:

We're investing billions of pounds across the country building new homes the country needs and helping to tackle the shortage of affordable housing. But we must also continue our drive to bring existing homes and communities back up to scratch in parts of the country that previously lagged behind the rest.

I am today backing these towns with £311m to transform themselves into the sorts of attractive communities that will bring people back to live there and provide much needed new homes. Crucially it will improve the quality of life and the neighbourhoods for those people stuck, unable to sell their homes, in these abandoned streets.

At the same time this power of government investment will also support the construction industry during the recession, create opportunities for local workers and apprentices to learn a trade.

There are twelve Housing Market Renewal (HMR) areas: Birmingham/Sandwell, East Lancashire, Hull & East Riding, Manchester/Salford, Merseyside, Newcastle/Gateshead, North Staffordshire, Oldham Rochdale, South Yorkshire, Tees Valley, West Cumbria and West Yorkshire.

All twelve areas have had to prove they will deliver value for money, judged on factors such as housebuilding and refurbishment levels and – for the first time – on the numbers of jobs and apprenticeships this funding would create locally, and how this will support economic recovery. 

The £311m is planned to be distributed across the Pathfinder areas as follows:

• Birmingham Sandwell: £11m
• East Lancashire: £48m
• Hull and East Riding: £28m
• Manchester Salford: £42m
• Merseyside: £47m
• Newcastle Gateshead: £29m
• North Staffordshire: £36m
• Oldham Rochdale: £28m
• South Yorkshire (includes West Yorkshire funding): £31m
• Tees Valley: £10m
• West Cumbria: £1m

Robert Napier, chairman of the HCA, said:

The Pathfinders have proven that they have the power to transform their areas, removing blight and refurbishing swathes of empty properties. So I welcome Government's confirmation of this funding, which will allow us to continue our work in places where we have made important commitments to local people.

Source: Central Office of Information

A £4.5 million increase in Government funding for apprenticeships and trainees in the engineering construction sector will mean that opportunities for young people to train for skilled jobs could double to 1,200 by 2011, Secretary of State for Business, Lord Mandelson said recently.

Making its initial response to the Gibson Review of Engineering Construction, a study of productivity and skills in the sector, the Government has committed to:

•  Earmarking £4.5 million of funding for more trainees and apprenticeships in the sector.
   
• Working with the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board to ensure that the industry’s training levy is fairly applied to all firms working in the industry, including non UK firms.

Lord Mandelson also welcomed the creation of a new cross-industry body set up to promote change in the sector to be chaired by Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish & Southern Energy.

Lord Mandelson said:

“The engineering construction sector employs up to sixty thousand people in the UK. This new investment means that more home grown workers will be provided with the skills and experience needed for them to take the work opportunities that designing, building and maintaining the wave of new investment the country needs in power stations and energy infrastructure.

“I am delighted that someone of the calibre of Ian Marchant has agreed to take on this important role. His experience is highly relevant, and he is extremely well placed to take the work of the Forum forward.”

New chair of the forum Ian Marchant said:

"The UK's engineering construction industry needs more people with more skills and better productivity if it is to play a full part in the transformation of the UK's power stations, oil refineries and chemical plant that we will see over the next two decades.  One of the key risks to the overhaul of the country's asset base is that it lacks the engineers to do the work.  Over the next 18 months, I expect the new Forum to set out a practical and comprehensive plan to turn this risk into an opportunity for the UK to improve skills, create jobs and provide work for a growing number of successful engineering construction companies."

Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband said:

“There’s a big challenge ahead to build the energy infrastructure we need for the long term, in particular the massive expansion of low carbon sources needed to play our full part in the global fight against climate change.  A deal in Copenhagen will be vital in sending a strong signal, but it’s down to Government, industry and employees to work together to nurture the high tech skills needed to make it a reality”

The Department of Energy and Climate Change is to publish its 2050 Vision document in spring 2010, an important guide for the energy sector in the move to the low carbon future. This will respond to the report’s recommendation that the government should provide further information and signals to the energy sector to help companies produce long term investment strategies. Government will also continue to work to ensure that the right conditions are present to allow industry to take investment decisions to deliver a low carbon, secure energy supply.

Mark Gibson, a former Director General at the Department for Business, was tasked in February this year by Lord Mandelson to review productivity and skills within the construction engineering sector. The results of his report were presented to Ministers on 1 Dec 2009.

Source: Central Office of Information