The CITB was established on 21 July 1964 by the Industrial Training Order 1964, and was one of a number of training boards covering UK industries. It was a non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills until 2016 when it moved to the Department for Education. The activities of the CITB have been redefined by statutory instruments Order 1964. In October 2003 Charles Clarke, then Secretary of State for Education and Skills, awarded the licence for the new construction industry sector skills council to "ConstructionSkills", a partnership between the CITB and the Construction Industry Council. The CITB became known as CITB-ConstructionSkills, or simply ConstructionSkills, for the most of the next 10 years. In March 2013, it was announced that the organisation would drop brands such as CITB-ConstructionSkills, CSkills Awards and the National Construction College, and revert to its original CITB name as a result of industry feedback suggesting that multiple brands were causing confusion. With construction employers paying a statutory levy to the CITB, it has been subject to industry criticism over its funding of training. In June 2016, for example, the CITB was criticised for not supporting an industry charity, Building Lives, while providing grants to organisations to train sales and marketing staff.
Review
The October 2016Farmer Review of the UK Construction Labour Model made several key recommendations to reform training in the industry. One of these was for fundamental reform of the CITB and the levy. In May 2017, the awarding body Cskills Awards was sold to another industry awarding body NOCN. In October 2016, the government's skills minister Robert Halfon appointed Paul Morrell to lead a review of industrial training boards, in particular the future role of the CITB. Industry support for the CITB varied widely, with some sectors voting against renewal of the CITB's levy, while others favoured its continuation so long as there were reforms. The report, Building Support: the review of the Industry Training Boards, was published in November 2017. In November 2017, the CITB unveiled a new strategy to become simpler and more streamlined, ending direct training via the National Construction College, and abandoning its facility at Bircham Newton in Norfolk moving to Peterborough. The changes were likely to include substantial job losses among the CITB's 1,400 staff, particularly in Norfolk, as it commissioned outside providers rather than providing training itself. In total, 750 staff, more than half the workforce, were said to be under threat of redundancy. In April 2018, the CITB unveiled a three-year plan in which more than 800 staff would be axed in reforms designed to modernise its business. The CITB proposed to reduce from 1,370 UK staff in March 2018 to 358 by 2021. In November 2018, various back-office functions were outsourced, affecting 337 staff, with most transferring to the new provider, Shared Services Connected Ltd. In December 2018, it was revealed that, to retain employment with SSCL, over 200 staff based in Norfolk, plus over 100 staff in London, Leicestershire, Scotland and Wales, would be forced to relocate and work from SSCL's offices in York and other locations - a move condemned by Unite the Union as effectively making the 300 staff redundant. In March 2019, the CITB's new head office was established in Peterborough. In February 2020, the CITB announced it had sold the NCC's Bircham Newton site to West Suffolk College, based in Bury St Edmunds, aiming to continue construction industry training provision at the site.
