About the South East Regional Craft Skills Action Group (SERCSAG)

The South East Regional Craft Skills Action Group, or SERCSAG, consists of a spectrum of representatives from the South East heritage and training sectors and acts as a co-ordinating group for the delivery of the Regional Traditional Skills Action Plan.

Our work is intended to cover issues of supply, training and demand and thereby address all aspects of the skills shortages issue. The projects we are considering undertaking to help us achieve this are:

SUPPLY – increase the numbers of individuals who wish to train in traditional building craft skills by:

• Promoting the buildings bursary scheme across the region and helping to secure a minimum of six new trainees and placements on the scheme in the South East. 
• Creating a route-map for use by schools, colleges, employers and careers advisers to show young people and those already working in the mainstream construction industry how they can go about training / upskilling to work in heritage construction.

DEMAND – increase demand in contractor-employers and property owners/managers for appropriately skilled staff to work on heritage sites, by:

• Promoting the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) card with heritage endorsement to contractor-employers and property owners/managers. 
• Considering the creation of a regional register of small maintenance and repair contractors who have experience with traditional skills and conservation, possibly through some of the ‘Buy With Confidence’ and other Trading Standards endorsed schemes.

TRAINING – identify, and increase if necessary, the current training provision for craft skills in the South East region by:

• Mapping the existing training provision both public and private in the region, and creating a prospectus for use by individuals, schools, careers centres and job centres etc. 
• Piloting a project looking at how training provision in the private sector can become part of the national qualifications framework. 
• Establishing a heritage training academy on the basis of the South West model.