Building our Industrial Strategy
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CIHT welcome the launch of the Government’s Green Paper ‘Building our Industrial Strategy’.
The strategy sets out a 10 pillar plan:
All 10 pillars are important and necessary to ensure the UK remains competitive in a newly structured global market place. In particular, giving support to transport infrastructure and highlighting how skills will play a key role in helping to deliver on the commitments made in the strategy.
As an industry, transport infrastructure is suffering a severe skills shortage at a time when investment in major projects is increasing and the demand for skilled technicians, planners, designers, engineers and managers is growing. There is no ‘quick fix’ to solving skills shortages – finding, training, retaining and developing the next generation of highways and transportation professionals will take time.
Sue Percy, CIHT Chief Executive said:
'We need to attract more young people from all backgrounds into highways and transportation. To do this, we must make them aware of the interesting and varied job roles and career paths on offer in a way that catches their imagination and encourages them to want to find out more.'
CIHT has produced a Diversity & Inclusion toolkit and is encouraging its Corporate Partners to sign-up to Diversity & Inclusion Charter. The toolkit offers practical guidance, case studies and links to reliable sources of expert advice for employers to help recruit, retain and develop a more diverse workforce. By doing so, employers will improve their own business performance and increase capacity within the industry.
Sue Percy said:
'Opening the sector to a more diverse workforce and taking action to engage, retain and develop the people that work with us is vital to the capacity, capability and future sustainability of the sector taking action in response to skills shortages to attract people who may not have traditionally considered careers in highways and transportation. CIHT encourages the Government to continue to support these as means of helping to deliver on the skills agenda as set out in the Industrial Strategy.'
Delivering affordable energy and clean growth is also welcome. Transport has a vital role to play in improvements to air quality.
The strategy also highlights driving growth across the whole country reinforcing the importance of the Northern Power House. Devolution offers opportunities for the Government to rebalance growth across the whole country and again, investment in connectivity, both physically and digitally, at a sub-national level is welcomed. It is important that all areas of the UK are recognised and supported.
As always, the necessary funding required to carry out these important measures is key. The strategy highlights £170m on technical training and allocates a further £560m for the Northern Powerhouse.
Andrew Hugill, Director of Policy and Technical Affairs said:
'We are pleased to see that government has acknowledged the need for a strategy to deliver on its industrial commitments. As one of the pillars of this strategy we believe that the introduction of a national transport strategy is now more important than ever. This paper also supports our view of a need to improve the coordination of delivery at a national, regional and local level. CIHT will be exploring ways in which the voice of our members will be heard throughout this process.
CIHT will spend some time reading through the strategy and will provide further detail in due course. The Green Paper is open for consultation until the 17th April and we would welcome members contributions to help CIHT formulate the response.
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