Qualifying Your Workforce
The construction industry is striving to achieve a fully qualified workforce. The NHTG are supporting this drive by helping to develop training courses for specialist trades and by working with heritage clients to demand proof of competence from tradespeople on heritage projects.
Incentives
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) expects the client to use a contractor that has a qualified workforce and actively recruits apprentices.
The statutory heritage agencies - English Heritage, Cadw, Historic Scotland and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency - are clear about their aim to support contractors who train and they are sharing this view with the other main public and private sector clients who own and manage historic buildings.
To support these aims the NHTG is developing a unified accredited register to provide consumer protection to clients when selecting a suitable experienced and competent contractor for pre-1919 building work.
The industry-standard method for demonstrating an individual's competence to work on historic buildings is the Heritage Skills CSCS Card.
Routes to a Fully Qualified and Carded Workforce
- Experienced practitioners can achieve the Heritage Skills NVQ Level 3 through On-Site Assessment and Training (OSAT). This is the best route to obtain the Heritage Skills CSCS Card, but other evidenced-based routes are currently available.
- New Entrants can follow an apprenticeship route to Level 2 in an appropriate construction craft, followed by an agreed programme of training with the employer leading to a Level 3 in Heritage Skills. It is hoped that the Heritage Apprenticeship (currently being piloted) will formalise the training required to reach Level 3.
- Up-skilling of staff can also be acheived by attending training courses offered by built heritage training providers.
- Mentoring and skills-sharing, work placements and work experience are all mechanisms for developing your workforce to a higher skills level.