The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has handed in its notice to the Construction Skills Certification Scheme.
CITB has had a contract for the past 20 years with the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) to provide card administration services, looking after customers and processing applications. Each year the CITB process more than 400,000 card applications and one million contact centre enquiries on behalf of CSCS.
However, following its recent existential crisis CITB has decided that it not only does not want to deliver training any more, it also does not want to provide CSCS administration.
CSCS is a not-for-profit organisation owned by a consortium of industry trade associations and trades unions.
CITB’s notice period is three-and-a-half years. CSCS will now begin the process of identifying a new service provider. It has appointed management consultants to help with the search. In the meantime, the CITB will continue to deliver the card application and contact centre service until handover to a new supplier.
CSCS chief executive Graham Wren said: “I can confirm that CSCS recently received notice from the CITB that they wish to terminate the card administration and contact centre contract. CSCS has relied on the CITB to deliver the administration of the scheme for more than 20 years and we are grateful for the contribution they have made to the success of the scheme.
“CITB and CSCS agree that the administration of the scheme must not be interrupted and our priority is to secure a new service provision to deliver a first-class service to our 1.6 million cardholders.”
He added: “The three-and-a-half-year notice period provides an opportunity to identify new and smarter ways of working, such as online applications, that could benefit not just individual card holders, but their employers to. We would like to reassure card holders that the scheme will operate as normal while the process to identify a new service provision takes place.”
CITB director of products and services Braden Connolly said: “Future CITB will see us becoming a more strategic organisation, clearly focused on delivering on industry’s key skills priorities. This means focusing on fewer things and doing them better. In the last 20 years, the UK has established itself as a world leader in services and there are potential providers who can offer a more efficient, modern service than CITB can provide in the administration of the CSCS card scheme.
“Our association with CSCS goes back many years and CITB is proud to have been associated with its success however the time is right for us to withdraw from providing this service. CSCS still holds an important place in our industry, being relied on for evidence of skills and certification thousands of times a day. The continued success of CSCS is important to our industry and we will continue to work with them to improve the service and ultimately transfer that service to a new provider.”
