Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 17
17
Accepted
Construction industry continues to report a lack of skills for essential building remediation activities.
Recommendation
The Home Builders Federation (HBF) told us that there remained a lack of skills within the industry, making it difficult to find qualified people to undertake remediation work. It explained that addressing this issue was challenging, but could, and was, being accelerated. We therefore asked MHCLG if it was confident that there were sufficient skills and capacity in the market to undertake remediation activity at the pace it was looking for. MHCLG assured us that it was something it monitored “extremely closely”, starting with the ability to access fire assessors, to creating capacity to ensure people can get access to assessments quickly.28
Government Response Summary
The government agrees to update the Committee by July 2025 on its work to increase capacity and skills in the building sector to accelerate remediation. It cites additional funding for the Building Safety Regulator, bringing in experienced inspectors, and working with mayoral strategic areas to drive remediation.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: July 2025 The government agrees to update the Committee on the work it is doing to increase capacity and skills across the building sector to accelerate remediation, by the end of July 2025. Progressing remediation and ensuring that residents are safe in their own homes is a priority for this government. Whilst the government accepts that the context is challenging, it does not accept that it has been complacent about the risks identified by the Committee. Examples of the work MHCLG has done to increase capacity and skills across the sector supporting government’s remediation and housebuilding objectives include: providing additional funding to boost the Building Safety Regulator’s (BSR) capacity of case officers; improve infrastructure, training and processes to maximise BSR’s operational efficiency; bringing in additional experienced and qualified building control inspectors from private sector Registered Building Control Approvers to bolster its capacity to deal with both remediation work and Gateway applications for new High-Rise Buildings. The department is also working with mayoral strategic areas to drive remediation through Local Remediation Acceleration Plans – bringing together expertise, local knowledge and resources to create single area strategies. In terms of capacity and skills in the construction sector, the department continually monitors and reacts to changes and capacity in the remediation supply chain, via market capacity surveys, supplier engagement forums and through continual liaison and collaboration with delivery partners.