Skills

The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has announced it will refocus its work as part of a strategy launched today to guide it over the next three years. The trade body said it will focus its efforts on four long-term ambitions to deliver “transformational change”, as it outlined its intentions to…

Plans to withdraw funding from certain apprenticeship routes will have a “dramatic and deleterious effect on the construction sector”, the government has been warned. The fear over worsening the industry's skills gap was voiced by the Cross-Industry Construction Apprenticeship Task Force, which said the plans could see the sector “starved…

The government has decided to scrap recent reforms to the tax status of self-employed workers from April next year, in what it said is a move towards simplifying the tax regime. Reforms to IR35, introduced in April 2021, require workers routinely working with the same contractors to be counted as…

Thousands of construction workers have been put in a “pay limbo” ahead of Queen Elizabeth's funeral next Monday, Unite has warned. The trade union argued that staff are unsure of whether they will have to go to work on 19 September and, if not, whether they will be paid due…

Proposals which could lead to radical change around construction product competence (CPC) have been laid out in a new white paper. The Built environment – proposed construction product competence standard document outlines the industry’s need to “unite behind” a single standard. This would allow those those working with construction products,…

The number of people employed by the construction sector continues to rise, now standing at 2.65m, official statistics reveal. According to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) employment survey, the sector added a further 1,000 vacancies despite the growing workforce. The 2.65m figure relates to June this year. Salary…

Mace's chief financial officer Richard Bienfait has left. Bienfait had held the executive position since January 2020, when he joined the contractor. Before that, he had served as the chief executive of the student accommodation provider University Partnerships Programme. Mace confirmed in a statement that Bienfait had resigned from the…

Former Crossrail bosses are to advise the Israeli government on a new £33bn metro, planned for the city of Tel Aviv. Crossrail managers have been contracted to advise on design, safety and standards, and sustainability on a huge infrastructure plan in Israel. Grant Shapps confirmed the deal via a memorandum…

A string of administrations among mechanical and electrical (M&E) firms could be down to teams entering sites last – making them more susceptible to project cancellations, a construction expert has warned. Earlier this month, Construction News reported that 43 per cent of construction firms that went into administration in July…

Liz Truss has vowed to review the IR35 tax regime to help smaller, self-employed workers if she is chosen to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister in September. In an interview with The Sun, Truss pledged to cut taxes for tradesmen, stating that the current IR35 rules are “unfair” and…