Geeta Nathan blogs about CITB’s approach to targeted funding, productivity, technology, innovation and recruitment.

As an industry, we need to continually evolve and improve in order to meet increasing demand. At CITB, we’ve identified areas that we need to focus on and develop in order to keep up with the strong pipeline of work – areas like productivity, technology, innovation and recruitment.

And now we have a new way of helping bring about projects that address specific industry-related issues: commissioning.

Commissioned funding is different from our other funds in that we demonstrate the need using our evidence base. Employers then bid for the funding, outlining how they would deliver a programme that meets that need. We set the amount of funding available and devise a list of required outcomes.

This way, employers use their expertise, ideally in collaboration with other employers, to respond to industry-specific issues. And because we’ve identified the need in the first instance, the funds are ready to go to the successful applicants. The resulting projects should directly help meet the industry’s priorities and have a greater chance of success.

Productivity

There is just one month remaining for you to bid for the new CITB Productivity Fund. We hope successful projects will help reduce avoidable errors, defects and rework in construction projects – and in turn boost profit margins and productivity.

Whether you are an employer, a federation or training group, you have until 5pm on Friday 20th November to enter your applications.

CITB has identified that in the UK construction sector, the direct cost of avoidable errors is on average 5% of project value. This equates to about £5bn per year and greater than the average profit margin for a typical construction project. This figure rises to over 20% of project value when unrecorded process waste, indirect costs and latent defects are included.

This is why we have decided to invest £500,000 in five successful applications.

The projects can be up to 18 months in duration, and must have a clear focus on reducing construction-related errors whilst increasing early identification of errors.

This will ultimately help us significantly improve the productivity, profitability and performance of our industry.

How can I apply?

Current commissions include:

For full details about current and upcoming commissions, guidance notes and application forms please visit here.

And if you want to apply for a commission but don’t have a partner or are open to engaging more, we are happy to help you collaborate. All you have to do is register your interest.