Grant cutbacks will “impact industry training”…
National Demolition Training Group hits back over “swingeing” grant funding cuts.
Howard Button
Following a recent meeting of the Learning and Skills Council, training providers (including the National Demolition Training Group) were advised that cutbacks in funding means that it will “not be enough to support new starts on next year’s contract, and that, initially at least, we will only be offering providers an allocation to complete learners carried over from the 2008-09 contract year”.
Button believes that this will impact across the entire industry but will be felt most acutely within the demolition business. “The Demolition NVQ Level 2 has been a great success due to two factors: the hard work put in by the NDTG; and the grant funding that has been available to contractors in England,” Button asserts. “Almost 200 Demolition VQs have been achieved by the NDTG to date in England. This loss of funding will have a huge and negative impact at a time when we (the NFDC) are encouraging our members to maintain their commitment to training at a time of industry-wide recession.”
The reduction in grant funding comes hot on the heels of a protracted discussion over the CPCS card scheme. Although this was recently resolved when CPCS finally recognised the specific equipment training needs of the demolition sector, the delays caused will now be magnified still further by another round of negotiations over NVQ funding.
Button further believes that the cutbacks will impact upon a Level 3 vocational qualification that is currently being developed by the National Demolition Training Group. “We have spent months developing a Demolition-specific NVQ Level 3. But how many companies will be willing to shell out £2,000 per man to get this new qualification when they could just as easily stick with the current NDTG 12-week distance learning course that delivers a Supervisor’s gold card. As far as I am concerned, the NDTG’s NVQ Level 3 is now on hold, pending feedback from the Learning and Skills Council and CITB ConstructionSkills.”
Posted: August 4th, 2009 under General, News, People.
Tags: demolition, demolitionnews, howard button, NFDC, training
Comment from mick saunders
Time September 28, 2009 at 2:06 pm
i read this article with great intrest, it only goes to prove what i said in an earlier post to your site a couple of months back. But what Howard Button forgets is this, it is not only the new breed of demolition workers that are affected by all this,but the older ones as well.Everyone has jumped on the band wagon over tickets for tis tickets for that but no thought about the cost and what affect it will have on the industry and now it starts to happen people sit up and listen. OK so this recession does not help, but surely to God someone must have seen this coming.Why not implement what was suggested by one of your readers that when we are not working the time is given back on CCDO tickets. Why does not the NFDC get thier own members to fund the training instead of wasting it on the get togethers where they pat each other on the back for the past year (if they are not careful they will not be able to afford it soon they will not have the workers). And why oh why do we have to have so many people training people who have nothing to do with the industry but only for the money, offer these sort of jobs to the people like me and others who have spent thier working lives in demolition we have the experience we didnt learn from books. If i sound critical of the Federation than so be it but i feel i have good reason. I believe it was set up to help my industry not to treat itself as a jolly club, we have had recessions before the writing was on the wall then but still no one done much about this situation then or will they still do nothing now.
I am still waiting to sort my tickets out i was offered help but perhaps i missed the chance as i didnt hear anything further but no way am i going to leave this industry i will get my tickets sorted, but as Mr Button now realises it is the cost of all this we the workers need the NFDC to help us not sit and talk about it