The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has released its latest accounts and – no surprise – the figures show it is still favouring large construction firms and those who boast connections to its governing boards and committees.

Heading the list of the ‘Chosen Few’ are the struggling Kier Group, which received £3.2m and Barratt Developments whose Chief Executive David Thomas recently sold £3.3m in shares in the group to ‘balance personal interests’.  Barratt was awarded £2.3m in grants.

It’s also interesting to see how the CITB has again given huge amounts of cash to the trade federations on whom they rely when it comes to convincing the government to maintain and renew their levy raising powers. 

In particular, the Home Builders Federation comes in at number eight with a £1.2m payout after withdrawing support for the levy in 2018. That’s a whopping amount of money, and a cynic might believe it’s aimed at buying support when the CITB is forced to go through its consensus process again next year.

Last time out, the CITB laughingly claimed that 76.9% of levy paying employers wanted to keep the levy.  However, Hudson Contract’s own client survey plus independent research conducted by YouGov told a very different story, with overwhelming support for the levy to be scrapped altogether.  We will have to see if the Home Builders Federation has changed its tune . . . at Hudson Contract we are now considering a variety of ways to make sure the wishes of our clients are clearly heard in 2020.