SummitSkills is the Sector Skills Council for the building-services industry. In the past five years, the organisation has been working on a Sector Skills Agreement (SSA) that meets the industry’s training needs. It is a deal between employers, training providers and the government that will give employers the skilled workforce they require.

The SSA defines the training needs of each region and the nation. It has identified deficiencies in knowledge and skills of IT and environmental and renewable technologies. A thorough overview of the industry’s current curriculum also highlights the need to provide appropriate education and training.

Plans for the SSA’s implementation are devised to achieve various short, medium and long-term goals. These include an assessment of what courses are currently provided, how to simplify them in order to improve efficiency and remove confusion, and how to enhance cooperation between employers and training providers. Most importantly, occupational standards need to be updated, particularly those for environmental and renewable technologies.

In the future three years, regional and national representatives will meet quarterly to review and monitor progress of the SSA’s delivery. Employers are invited to promote building-services engineering as a career choice, and to measure and demonstrate the contribution that training makes to increased productivity and profitability. SummitSkills will develop a series of authorised entry and progression routes so that all trained workers can have realistic chances of employment in the industry. National occupational standards for current and emerging technologies will be established to ensure that there are integrated strategies and frameworks for apprenticeship training.