Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 192
1st Report - Meeting housing demand
Published 10 Jan 2022
Built Environment Committee Meeting the UK’s housing demand All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The CITB has attracted criticism for failing to meet skills shortages. In October 2021, the National Federation of Builders published a paper calling for a fundamental restructuring of the body, including stripping CITB of its levy-raising powers. 287 The paper found that industry confidence in the CITB as “credible and reputable, adding value to the industry” in 2020 was 26%, down from 35% in 2019. It concluded that the CITB’s responsibilities should be redeployed to existing and new organisations, and the existing company put to competitive tender to ensure a focus on accountability and value for money. The National Federation of Builders proposed setting up a new national construction careers body that would be sponsored by the Department for Education. 288
From: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report - Meeting housing demand, 10 January 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 March 2022 (deadline 10 March 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and says it is "taking action on a number of the issues identified", agreeing with some recommendations while disagreeing with others, including on home ownership schemes and the Apprenticeship Levy.
- It "disagrees with the report's assessment that homeownership schemes do not provide good value for money", citing independent evaluations and its own evaluation of Help to Buy.
- On older people's housing, it is launching a new taskforce "this year", chaired by the Minister for Housing, to look at better choice, quality and security of housing.
- It does "not intend to set out a proportion" of Affordable Homes Programme funding for social housing, though "around half" of the affordable homes are to be for social and affordable rent.
- On the Apprenticeship Levy it says it has "no plans to review" it. On planning fees it is "exploring options" to increase them, and on local plans it will make an announcement "in due course".