Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 20
20
Accepted in Part
Insufficient incentives hinder retraining 110,000 gas heating engineers for heat pump installations.
Recommendation
We heard from DESNZ that a key challenge will be to retrain around 110,000 existing gas heating engineers to install heat pumps. Centrica, an energy company and low carbon heating installer, agreed that it was “vital” to focus on retraining as many engineers as possible to ensure that there are enough engineers to support homes to install low carbon technologies. DESNZ considered that this could be done quickly through an existing skilled workforce.35 The Heat Pump Association and Heat Pump Federation, which represent manufacturers of heat pumps, however, called for more to be done to incentivise the upskilling of the existing heating engineer workforce.36 In its written evidence to us, Schneider Electric said that there were “inadequate” incentives for upskilling and training. It explained that the complexity of heat pump installations compared to traditional boilers and the current insufficient £500 training grant to cover lost income from four days of training discouraged installers from upskilling.37 Monitoring and evaluating progress
Government Response Summary
Government agrees with the recommendation and highlights existing training grants, updated apprenticeships, and the establishment of a new Office for Clean Energy Jobs, but defers decisions on future training incentives to the Spending Review 2025.
Government Response
Accepted in Part
HM Government
Accepted in Part
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Summer 2025 (Following phase 2 of Spending Review) 3.2 The government recognises that the number of heat pump installers will need to continue to increase rapidly beyond 2025 and will work closely with industry to ensure that sufficient installers are available to install heat pumps. The Heat Training Grant is the main form of government support currently available to upskill the existing heating engineer workforce and will provide around 10,000 opportunities for heat pump and heat network professionals. While this scheme is funded until April 2025, decisions on future training support will form part of Spending Review 2025 (SR25). 3.3 In addition, the apprenticeship framework for heating and plumbing was recently updated to ensure it offers the right skills to deliver Net Zero and launched a new Low Carbon Heating Technician apprenticeship in Autumn 2023. This will help bring new entrants into the sector and build a sustainable skills pipeline. The government will continue to work with industry to promote awareness and uptake of this apprenticeship and explore the most effective ways to grow and diversify the installer workforce. 3.4 The Regional Skills Pilots is a £3.5 million investment in the retrofit skills supply chain across the English regions. The pilots support the five local net zero hubs to work with local delivery partners to identify and test solutions to regional challenges. As part of the pilots, over £600,000 will directly support local heat pump supply chains. Other actions include supporting further education colleges to invest in new low carbon skills training facilities and upskill teaching staff to build capacity and capability in the system. Further support for skills pilots will be subject to decisions taken at SR25. 3.5 The department has set up the Office for Clean Energy Jobs, which will support tackling workforce and skills challenges in core energy and net zero sectors, critical to meeting our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower. The Office will work with the Department for Education and support the newly established Skills England to ensure we have the skills we need to deliver the Mission, forming a view across the department to feed into Skills England’s wider assessment of the UK economy’s structural skills needs, and supporting with targeted delivery of specific policy solutions in the energy sector.