Engaging with training and skills providers is a key issue for retrofit, where it is well established that there aren’t enough skilled design professionals and contractors in the retrofit supply chain to undertake the level of current demand and certainly not to scale up retrofit. The first themed Technical Briefing therefore heard from speakers from four organisations who have either dealt with training and skills providers or are themselves leading such organisations, about some of their challenges and opportunities. Those speakers were:
- Aileen McDonnell, Director of B4Box which works with disadvantaged communities to give them quality long-term jobs in the retrofit sector
- Mike Blakeley, Director at Exeter College which delivers a lot of retrofit skills training across the Southwest and South of England
- David Pierpoint, Retrofit Academy, a leading national organisation both in developing PAS2035 retrofit skills and partnerships with local authorities
- Cara Nadan, South Somerset District Council, which has been developing training and retrofit opportunities for local contractors.
Aileen McDonnell – Director B4Box
Aileen argued that skills and training is the hardest piece of the retrofit puzzle. The materials and technologies we require for retrofit are plentiful but we do not have the people we need. This is in no small part due to the way we think about labour in the construction industry, which needs a wholesale review. Currently the vast majority of construction work is carried out on site through sub-contracting with self-employed labourers working on zero-hours contracts, and by people who have not properly completed their construction training. The loss of local authority five-year apprenticeships in construction has added to this problem. The discussion around retrofit puts too much focus on high level skills for new heating systems, while the skills required for insulation and the wider retrofit of the fabric of the building are not valued.
A fabric first approach to household retrofit, properly carried out, will reduce energy demand by around 80%. The skills required for this require an understanding of the complex interplay between insulation, energy, ventilation, and occupier behaviour (i.e. the complex physiology of an occupied house as a ‘system’) and these are not soft skills; this is craftmanship, and a critical attention to detail. This area is precisely where we have a shortage of skills – a shortage of 200,000 workforce – and this craftmanship cannot be achieved by labourers on zero hours contracts and doing piece-work, as they have no opportunity to develop a holistic understanding of the building.
B4Box is a construction company and a college that does work for housing associations and local authorities. All their trainees are on a monthly, salaried wage from their first day – there is no subcontracting and zero hours contracts - which is life changing for the trainees themselves. Trainees are taught in college in the morning, and then taken out in the afternoon to apply their learning on a property undergoing retrofit. This is a novel approach that many procurers do not understand, and so they try to procure the two services (retrofit and training) separately, creating inefficiencies in costs for the procurer, and extra competition for B4Box. To overcome this challenge, Aileen worked with a client to create a contract around the uniqueness of B4Box’s offer and did a European Notice on this model to demonstrate that their offer truly was unique.
It took 18 months to develop this contract. It has KPIs around how to treat staff, their backgrounds, about how to arrange payments when funding comes from multiple sources, and finally what properties will be worked on and what they will have done. This is a departure from contracts which normally prioritise the work to be done first and is less concerned with exactly how it is done to create wider social benefits. Now fully developed, this model contract is repeatable and it works.
The client wanted to do this to help local people get into good quality work and to create environmental benefit, and it recognised that this particular contract is the way to break through the problems in the construction industry today (where ‘best value’ is often conflated with ‘cheapest’) that are so hindering energy retrofit. If one registered social landlord can do this, others can too.
Mike Blakeley – Director of Apprenticeships and Future Skills, Exeter College
Mike Blakeley also set out the skills gap challenge for fabric first retrofit, before setting out their response as a College. Exeter College have set up the Green Construction Advisory Panel (GCAP), with about 60 members from schools and colleges, housing, employers, manufacturers and charities. This employer needs-led response to the challenge of retrofit is a shared response to the skills challenge, which gives a clear line of sight to the demand for skills, allows knowledge transfer across the peninsular, and is leading to the development of specialist programmes to upskill and reskill the workforce.
The GCAP is leading to the design and delivery of short courses to upskill Further Education teachers, and Department for Education Bootcamps, which are both co-designed by employers, to help meet employer need. The GCAP is also leading to a citywide awareness of the retrofit agenda, including amongst young people, who then can see that jobs are available to them in this sector. Exeter College is also working to develop the Future Build Programme, to support retrofit skills training. This is centred around a recently completed building at the College which is designed jointly with employers. It replicates all housing stock within a 10-15 mile radius of the college, and so really allows students to practise the skills they will need in a realistic context.
Exeter College, through its work with the GCAP, looks towards a future with a wide and fully collaborative response to the skills agenda. This is where young people fully realise the retrofit skills opportunities available to them, where a lack of skills are not hindering net zero targets, allowing those targets to be met.
The core of this work is collaboration. Mike shared some key insights that make this collaboration successful. To begin with, GCAP is an ambitious public private partnership with clearly mapped out aims, which avoids mission creep. It ‘identified the tip of the spear’; its work began with people who are ambitious and who want to make an impact and grew organically from there. Possible ‘wants and needs’ are simplified to reduce bureaucracy. The partnership adopts a “you said, we did” mantra which keeps stakeholders focused and invigorates achievement. The stakeholders within the partnership are diverse – giving complimentary mindsets. There is a clear line of sight to the end game of retrofit jobs, stimulating progress. Finally, as the GCAP is region wide it reduces duplication.
The GCAP also addresses some of the challenges that Aileen mentioned in her own talk about the predominance of self-employed zero hours labourers. Construction managing agencies are indeed members of this partnership, but they are encouraged to ‘bring a friendly SME’ to the group, to start to understand the needs of that group with regard to skills and training. As such, over half of the GCAP partnership is made up of SMEs.
David Pierpoint – CEO Retrofit Academy
The Retrofit Academy’s vision is “a world where every home is warm, healthy and low carbon”, and their mission is to support the development of 200,000 competent retrofitters by the end of the decade. David pointed to the huge challenges involved in retrofit – 27 million homes need to be retrofitted in just 28 years. The Retrofit Academy have their own route to achieve the upskilling required to meet the retrofit challenge.
Firstly, the Retrofit Academy needed to address competence and qualifications. They have developed a number of existing courses from Levels 2 to 5 in understanding domestic retrofit, retrofit advice, retrofit assessment and retrofit co-ordination and risk management. They also provide a ‘Fit for Retrofit’ award for Social Housing Organisations to assess their readiness, and a CPD programme.
Secondly, the Retrofit Academy work to build local partnerships. They are working with local authorities in Devon, Essex, Belfast and Hampshire; with East Sussex College and Enable Communities and with funding partners such as the West Midlands and Greater Manchester Combined Authorities and Construction Scotland Innovation Centre to build up local supply chains. Thirdly, they work to create client and employer partnerships nationally, working with leading Tier One contractors, managing agents, utility companies, leading installers and DLOs, while also working with the most engaged social landlords and local authorities. All of this work seeks to create the jobs that newly trained workers will need. Work is also done on retrofit market intelligence, to map demand and supply on actual and future projects to understand where supply chain investment is most urgently needed.
The Retrofit Academy also promotes retrofit careers. They work to outline career pathways in retrofit through an online retrofit careers portal and an outreach programme into schools, Further and Higher Education. They highlight available funding to gain qualifications and promote employers to their future workforce.
The Retrofit Academy is also working with Exeter College (as well as others) to help with the development of a quality assured training network, which is licensed. It has a train the trainer programme, standardised assessment and support for both tutors and learners.
All of this work means the Retrofit Academy is well placed to support industry and government to tackle the wicked problems of the retrofit supply chain. It has a suite of activity to support both the delivery and the sharing of best practice and to celebrate success. This includes alumni and organisational membership, trade show curation, the Retrofit Academy Awards, the client support programme, summits and best practice clubs, partnership working with the Net Zero Energy Hubs and central government, and the creation of software, tools and resources. As such, the Retrofit Academy also works to deliver major and impactful projects, funded by the Community Renewal and Shared Prosperity Funds, and DfE Skills Bootcamps.
Cara Nadan – South Somerset District Council
The final speaker was Cara Nadan who gave a sense of how local authorities are trying to act in the retrofit landscape. There are currently five councils in Somerset, none of which have access to their own housing stock as this has been taken over by other housing providers. However, they wanted to take up government opportunities for funding for retrofit, particularly around park homes, of which there are a high number in the county. The councils worked together through the Somerset Retrofit Accelerator Project which brought together four district councils, three town councils, Somerset Independence Plus and the Centre for Sustainable Energy, on a LAD funded project.
There is a strong need to accelerate retrofit in Somerset – a quarter of Somerset’s emissions come from homes, and 60 per cent of the housing stock there has an energy performance rating below C. 96 per cent of Somerset’s housing stock requires a rapid uptake of retrofit if Somerset is to reach its 2030 carbon neutral target. As such, it is hoped that this project would accelerate demand and develop the retrofit supply chain.
However, there were a number of barriers to retrofit in the area. There was not enough public awareness and also not enough understanding of the importance of whole house retrofit in order to achieve the multiple benefits of improved thermal comfort and ventilation, reduction of energy bills and carbon emissions. There was also a lack of contractors available to deliver the works to PAS2035 standard – only one contractor applied.
The Somerset Retrofit Accelerator Project is also giving 50 discounted Home Retrofit plans for Somerset households in partnership with Futureproof for homeowners and 30 paid places on the Futureproof Essentials course for local construction professionals to increase the availability of local skilled contractors. Low carbon homes were showcased through virtual online tours to stimulate peer-to-peer learning of the benefits of retrofit to drive take up. Over 1500 Somerset residents will be given the opportunity to improve their knowledge and understanding of energy efficiency and whole house retrofit through ‘improve Don’t Move’ and Eco Open Homes events. The project is also creating a new online resource through a Green Directory for Somerset, making it easier for homeowners to find products and contractors for their retrofit projects.
Cara’s discussion also raised a number of interesting and challenging questions. Drawing on those to oft-forgotten elements of the Retrofit Academy’s own vision, how do we support people (both contractors and householders) to understand the wider complexities of retrofit including health and well-being? How do we encourage contractors who have full order books for home improvements and extensions, to take up time training (potentially unpaid) to upskill in retrofit? How do we inform and educate householders to retrofit, rather than just extend?
Final Thoughts
The final discussion following the presentations really revolved around creating a pipeline of work. It is critical that contractors see a growing market for retrofit if they are to be convinced that it is worth their while training to enter it. However, the skills shortage is in fact one of the barriers to the growth of that market – setting up a ‘Catch 22’ situation. This requires planning for retrofit skills expansion.
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