CITB Funding Changes: The Questions the Industry Is Asking

Recent changes to CITB funding have prompted a lot of discussion across the construction industry. For many employers and training providers, those changes raise practical questions about how training is funded, supported, and delivered.

 Jimmy Webb speaks with Deb Madden, Executive Director of Engagement and Operations at CITB, to explain the context behind those decisions and how the levy and grant system functions in practice. 

Topics discussed include:  

• How levy funding is structured and allocated
• Why engagement with CITB has increased and what that has created
• The challenges around skills shortages, new entrants, and FE pathways  
• What the funding changes may mean for employers and training providers 

This episode of the UK Construction Blog Podcast has been aimed to add clarity and context to a complex issue, supporting a more informed and constructive conversation across the industry. 

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Transcript

From groundbreaking projects to game-changing innovations, the UK Construction Podcast brings you face-to-face with the industry’s brightest minds and boldest thinkers. Each episode features candid conversations with construction leaders, architects, engineers, and on-site experts who share their hard-won insights and behind-the-scenes perspectives. We cut through the noise to deliver actionable intelligence on market trends, emerging technologies, and the forces shaping British building.

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JIMMY WEBB:
Hello all, welcome to another episode. Today I’m joined by Deb Madden, Executive Director of Engagement at CITB. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Deb previously on my own show, the Construction Cods Podcast, and given the recent changes to CITB funding, it felt like the right time to invite her back for this conversation.

We’re here to talk through those changes, what they mean in practice, and to address some of the questions and concerns employers and training providers across the industry have been raising. This is a chance for those questions to be put directly and for CITB to explain the thinking behind the decisions. Let’s get to it.

Hi Deb, great speaking with you again.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Nice to see you, Jimmy. Good to be here. Yeah, it’s been a busy couple of months for you, hasn’t it?

JIMMY WEBB:
It certainly has, and it’s not getting any less busy by the looks of things. But you love it though, you love all this work, don’t you?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
I do, I do. I absolutely do.

JIMMY WEBB:
Yeah. Well, when we met before, certain things were quite new in CITB, like the employer network and stuff, weren’t they? But a lot has happened since then, which we’re going to talk about. Before we continue, would you mind just letting everyone know who you are and what your role is at CITB?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
So I’m Deb Madden. I’m Executive Director at CITB for Customer Engagement and Operations. That means I look after all of our customer engagement throughout England, Scotland, and Wales. I also have responsibility for communications, marketing, customer experience, and our commissioned projects as well. I also look after our grant and funding products, and the verification of our levy and grant.

So yeah, quite a wide role.

JIMMY WEBB:
So you’re the perfect person to speak to about this.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Well, I should be. Let’s all play along.

JIMMY WEBB:
Yeah, great stuff. So, as you know, there’s been some mixed feelings in the industry.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Absolutely.

JIMMY WEBB:
So I want to act as a channel for people to get some answers, and also for you to have your say as an organisation. I’m not here to pick sides, but I may challenge both sides a little bit.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
That’s fine.

JIMMY WEBB:
You’re aware that I reached out on social media to get people’s input and to get their questions to put to you. I think there was a lot of interest, but I didn’t get much feedback of real value. I’ll add a couple of the comments that were there, but I’ve also spoken to people I know personally, done some research, and come up with my own questions as well.

I’ll go through most of the changes individually and we’ll expand on them a little bit. Is that all right?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Yeah, that’s absolutely fine.

JIMMY WEBB:
Yeah, cool.

So there were a couple of bits of feedback, and they were quite contentious. The first comment was around reductions in funding and no additional opportunities for the industry.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Yeah. So the thing is, since 2020 and 2021, we’ve increased engagement with the industry significantly. We had very low engagement previously.

We’re a mandatory organisation, for the sake of terminology. If you are an employer in the construction industry, you need to register with us and you may be liable to pay a levy. For that reason, it doesn’t always feel like a membership organisation.

We would like it to feel like a membership organisation, but it doesn’t for many employers. One of the tasks I was given was to increase engagement through my customer-facing teams.

We’ve had what, for us, has been a massively successful few years, increasing engagement by 36 per cent. That means more companies are thinking about training, more companies are involved with CITB, and more companies are taking value from CITB.

But when you realise that the vast majority of the companies who were previously disengaged are small and micro businesses who pay very little or no levy, you can see that we’ve created a bigger pull on the levy, but we’ve not increased the levy coming in.

So we’ve created a pull on the grant funding going out, with no increase in levy coming in. That’s the situation we’re in. It’s basic maths.

We’ve got a fixed amount of levy coming in, set for the next few years. That’s how the levy system works. At the same time, we’ve seen a massively increased pull on our grants and funding.

So we have to do something to make sure the books balance. We’re a charity. We’re also an arm’s-length body sponsored by DWP. We can’t go out and borrow money to see us through a tough patch.

We have to make sure we have sufficient reserves in place to pay grants even when there’s no levy coming in. There are two months of the year when no levy comes in. It’s a bit like council tax. That’s how the levy works.

So when you put all of that together, you look ahead and we need consistency of funding going forward, and we need to spread that funding further than we ever have before.

That’s the background to this, Jimmy, if that makes sense.

JIMMY WEBB:
Yeah, it does make sense. I’m glad you mentioned that the levy hasn’t been increased. I’ll touch on that a little bit later.

There's a number of reasons. So FE colleges obviously will be funded to take a cohort of learners on whatever programmes they deliver. It might be in a particular college, Britley in painting and decorating, joinery.

Now, in the main, FE colleges will work with employers and try to make sure that they are delivering the right training for the employee need in that area. But there's no formalised establishment of what that supply and demand need is. So that's the first thing.

So are we training too many Britleys, for example, in the southeast? We don't know because that training provider network is not linked with an employer network and that local intelligence is not readily available. So it could just be in some cases, a case of colleges are not training the right qualifications for the area.

There's then an argument that the qualifications in colleges are not geared towards working on site. And again, that could be for a number of reasons. It could be in some colleges, you'll have a real expert cohort of tutors and assessors who are really making sure that those young people get the right skills that they need.

They're really embedded and engaged with local employers. And there's lots of synchronicity between the two employers will come into college, colleges, staff will go out on site and all of that stuff. But that stuff doesn't happen by accident and it needs coordinating and managing.

And that's one of the things that doesn't happen in a coordinated way across England, Scotland and Wales. The other thing is that a lot of young people going to college because that's the only thing that's left for them to do. So they've left school at 16 maybe or 17 and there's no job for them or they're not ready to go into the job market and there's no apprenticeship for them because, as we've previously said, there's not loads of vacancies out there.

There's loads of applicants, but not loads of vacancies. And some people go into college for all the wrong reasons because, for example, by not going into college or taking a job instead, their family would lose benefits. And that's a real issue that needs to be addressed.

It's a government issue that needs to be addressed clearly. It's not something that the industry can do anything about. But what that means is that as people go through that two-year or three-year programme at college, people start to drop out because they're not there for the right reasons.

They're not motivated to be there. They're not there because they've got a passion about construction. And the thing that bothers me about that is because FE courses then start to get a bad rap, the young people who are in there really committed and passionate can often get missed.

So it's a combination of things, Jimmy, that just the whole system needs to be reset and sorted out. That will take some time. Now, the government announced the 600 million of funding, which is for construction training.

Majority of that, or a good proportion of that, will go into FE to make FE work again. And we've got some fabulous people who are on the Construction Skills Mission Board, who are helping to make that happen. The person that springs to mind is Nikki Davis, who's the principal at Leeds College of Building.

And she is very forthright and direct about what the issues are. And she will help to shape how that funding is spent and how the government make decisions about what we do with that funding. Yes, well, very thorough.

Very thorough that answer. Sorry, I was talking too much. 

No, no, no, no. That's good. That's good. We need the information.

That's what it's all about. That's what you're here for. I think there's probably a couple of other reasons.

One very simple reason that maybe they do the course and they just don't fancy it. It's not attractive enough. You know, the industry isn't that greatly attractive at the moment for various reasons.

Yeah. You know what, Jimmy? There are some young people who don't realise how cold it is in January at half seven in the morning.

Seriously, I'm not belittling anyone at all. It's the reality of it, isn't it? That's tough getting up December, January, February and going on site.

It's a tough ask. I'm telling you. And you're in the mood for it or you're not.

Well, exactly. I mean, I used to be a groundworker for years and that that is partly what got me out of it, because as I got older, every winter going in and my hands are frozen, picking up the shovel and it's just frozen and I can't stick into the sand. I'm thinking, no, this isn't for me anymore.

Got to get out. A lot warmer in a crane cab, isn't it? 

My husband, years and years ago, when he first started out, he was a railway worker for many years.

He never fancied office work, but he fancied it after 10 years shovelling on track. Do you know what I mean? 

Exactly.

Yeah, I think so. Might be partly to do with I've had a lot of people contact me recently because they can't find work. We've hit a real bad period lately, haven't we?

So that's partly why as well. I don't know where the figures start at an end of the six percent, but I think that's partly to do with it at the moment. It's been really hard to find work.

Yeah, we often talk about having an attraction problem in construction and there are all kinds of debates to be had around that. And we thought we touched on them last time we spoke, Jimmy, but there isn't really an attraction problem in the sense that we've got more applicants than we've got vacancies. But that is problematic.

And at the new entrant end, I understand if you're a small builder in particular, time is money, isn't it? And you cannot realistically expect a small builder to take an apprentice and lose money. There need to be better finance.

And the CITB grant is great, but in and of itself, it doesn't it doesn't make up for that lost money of giving up your time to properly mentor an apprentice and to get an apprentice through and to get them making money for you, which is the ultimate aim. You've got to give up that time and you've got to be you've got to be really engaged with that apprentice. They're not there to sweep up and make tea.

They're there to learn. But that takes time from your daily grind, doesn't it? Yeah, that is part of the problem, because I do know of some, not going to name the names, but I've heard of some companies that just use apprenticeships for cheap labour and don't guarantee a job at the end of it anyway, which is very naughty.

There is that. There is that. And our new entrant team is trying.

That's what we're trying to stamp out a little bit. But what I will say, because I always defend this industry, because there is a massive number of brilliant companies who year after year after year, train, train, train apprentices in full knowledge and the smaller micro builders largely in full knowledge that that apprentice will stay with them for a couple of years and then will move on to a different subbie or they will move on and set up their own business.

And you know what? They are they are the companies that are keeping the industry going seriously. Yeah, well, it's integrity, isn't it?

You know, it's about passing on. I always say this is passing on your knowledge and passing on what you know to keep it going.

Yeah.

Yeah. OK, so. Right.

So that's good. Am I right in saying that CITB no longer has reserves to draw on in the same way as it did previously? 

So we got a lot of stick last year because we appeared to have to be awash with money.

We were quoted as having 100 million reserves in the bank, but that was based on the annual report and accounts from the year previously because everything's always a year behind with that. We do we have to keep 50 million in reserves. And that's I mentioned earlier, we collect levy for 10 months of the year.

And so for the two months that we don't collect levy, obviously, we need to continue to pay funding. We need to continue to run the business and pay the grants and so on. So we need to keep 50 million of reserves that isn't or say, no, we need to feel safe.

That is a legal requirement that we have to keep that. So we do receive a lot of criticism and people saying you need to spend that 50 million on the industry. It's not that we're not spending it.

We have to keep it in reserve. Right. OK.

OK. And again, am I right in saying that only 10 percent of construction training is funded by the levy? 

It's an approximation and it's but it's the most accurate we can get it.

Yes, that's probably right. We couldn't give you exact figures, but the levy is designed. Originally, the levy was designed to to be a failsafe, to be in the case of market failure.

We would step in and support. And in some instances, we still do that. There's a recent example of floor covering in Scotland that the provider failed and we took it over and made sure that there was still floor covering training.

So that's the kind of thing that the originally the levy was intended for. But now it's more of a support and influence of the system, if you like. But yeah, billions spent on construction training, billions.

And you could say that the CITB's levy is a drop in the ocean. But it's about it's about steering people to do the right kinds of training. It's about being future focused and looking forward.

Yeah, yeah, sure. So where does the rest of the fund come from? 

Employers paying for training themselves, direct investment.

Most companies have a massive training budget. You know, if you if you look at the large contractors, they will have really, really significant training budgets and anything they get back from CITB will likely be a drop in the ocean for them. So employer direct investment, there's government funded provision as well, of course.

There's lots of local and regional funding and a lot of individual learn contributions too. People will will take responsibility for their own training. There's lots of learner loans out there and so on and self-funded programmes too.

Yeah, that's a good point actually. Have you got, can you sort of name any other areas of funding where people can go to rather than the CITB? I can't name any specific ones, but I can say that a lot of skills funding will move to the devolved administration.

So the mayoral authorities, lots of skills funding will move there. So you will start to see pockets of funding pop up and there will be pockets of funding out there already. But things like boot camps, things like sector skills academies, all of these locally and regionally based programmes and a lot of training providers.

There's some really savvy training providers out there who will go direct to either the local authorities or they'll go direct to government and they'll have funding in place to cover MVQs, for example. So yeah, and we can, so whilst I'm sitting here saying I can't give you specifics, my team will know about this. So my local advisors in the areas, they will know where to direct and signpost people to.

So use those advisors, use them. I agree with that. I'm going to touch on that in a bit actually as well because they are very good, the local advisors, the dealings we've had with them.

Yeah. So let's go on to prioritisation. You mentioned this earlier.

It seems as though it's been a large factor of what you've been doing. There's always going to be trade-offs with decision like this. Did you look at areas where funding was consistently underspent and remove those first?

We looked at, no we didn't, we didn't. Because we looked at this in a different way. We need to prioritise new entrants and we need to prioritise competence training.

So what we looked at was training that we were funding that wasn't adding value in those areas. And that's the top and bottom of it. That really is the top and bottom of it.

Where can we, where is the greatest value added? Well, the greatest value added is in tackling the skills shortages and the skills gaps. And the way to do that is to fund, support, redesign and prioritise new entrant training to get people in and keep people in, because it's about retention as well as start.

And to also keep people competent, get people to competence so that people are safe, so that they're compliant and so on. That is how we've prioritised it. There's nothing complex about this.

It's really simple. Yeah. So that actually answers one of my later questions.

I want to talk about the Level 7's managerial role. One of my assessors, I'll speak about that later, but you don't provide funding for management roles. So that is because you're looking more for the new entrants.

We do provide funding. So we've removed Level 7's because that's in line with government, government no longer fund Level 7 apprenticeships, for example. We looked at our, we're talking about long qualifications here, aren't we?

So the long qualifications, we've removed the attendance grants from long qualifications. We looked at what was coming through on those long qualifications and we did some analysis on it. And lots of degrees are coming through on those long qualifications.

If that is something that is needed to either change someone's career path or to bring someone in, then that should be funded through a high-level apprenticeship. And we've not removed any funding from that. So that's still there for the taking.

We also know that aside from apprenticeships, attendance grant doesn't really add any value. It's the achievement grants that adds the value. We want people to achieve and get to that competence level.

So we've left the achievement grants in, we've aligned it with other achievement grants, but we've removed the attendance.

Right. Okay.

There's a lot of grants. Yeah. A lot of grants are valuable.

We're trying to simplify, and this is, the biggest criticism and the most constant criticism we get is there's so many grants. I don't understand it. It's really bureaucratic.

It's really complicated. Which grants for what?

JIMMY WEBB:
We’re trying to remove that complication and that bureaucracy. And I know it feels like we’re just taking, taking, taking. We get that.

But you’ve had to make some decisions about how to simplify a complex system, because it is a complex system. How do you best attack those skill shortages and skills gaps? And Level 7 qualifications weren’t part of that drive to fill skills gaps.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
They can be done in another way, yes.

JIMMY WEBB:
So you’re obviously looking at areas where there is a shortage and prioritising those.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Yes.

JIMMY WEBB:
Short course training. Before we start, we’ve been talking about employer networks and grant schemes. Can you explain the difference between the two?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
The grant scheme is very transactional. You do a course, you claim grants. It sounds simple, but employers tell me it isn’t. It’s an absolute nuisance. Claiming fifty quid back for this, sixty quid back for that, whatever it might be. A lot of people don’t bother because it’s such a pain.

With employer networks, you either speak with an adviser or go direct to a training provider. The course is booked through our system and subsidised at source. You just pay the remainder.

That, to me, sounds far simpler than trawling through spreadsheets, checking if a course is grant funded, booking it yourself, and then filling in a long form to claim fifty quid back. We’re trying to remove bureaucracy and bring in simplicity.

We do the work for you. As employer networks develop, more of this will become automated. At the moment, we still have course bookers manually booking courses, but our aim is automated booking, automatic subsidy application, and providers invoicing employers for the remainder.

JIMMY WEBB:
One trade-off with the employer network is the employer contribution.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Yes. Even with short course grants previously, we weren’t paying for the entirety of programmes. There was usually a contribution. With employer networks, the subsidy is now 50 per cent so it can go further.

That goes back to my earlier point. We’re trying to do more with the same funding and cover more employers. That means reducing the subsidy slightly.

JIMMY WEBB:
A lot of people say funding has been cut.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
It hasn’t been cut. It’s being spread further. We’re spending the same amount of money.

I appreciate that for an employer who used to receive 70 or 100 per cent subsidy, 50 per cent doesn’t feel good. I get that. In their shoes, I’d probably feel the same. But this is for the broader good of the industry.

Some will benefit, some may feel disadvantaged. We want people to understand why we’ve done it.

JIMMY WEBB:
Short course training is no longer funded through the grant scheme, with exceptions for plant and scaffolding. Why was it moved exclusively to employer networks?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
I’ll be very honest and say scaffolding and plant were a step too far to move. It’s a complex funding mechanism, so we’ve left it where it is for now.

Short course training was the most complained-about grant. Employers felt it wasn’t worth the bureaucracy, so we moved it into employer networks to simplify it.

JIMMY WEBB:
Some employers don’t want or need to be in an employer network.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
You don’t have to join anything. It’s just the access route to subsidised training. You’re not signing up or locked into anything.

Employer networks are groups of employers in a locality, with steering groups who decide how funding is spent because we’re moving from demand-led to budget-led.

JIMMY WEBB:
Eventually, will training only be funded through providers in the Training Provider Network?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Yes, that’s where we’re headed. At the moment, there’s flexibility. Speak to your local adviser if you’re using a provider not yet in the TPN.

Longer term, funding will only be through TPN providers to ensure quality and due diligence.

JIMMY WEBB:
What if employers have trusted providers who aren’t in the TPN?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
If they’re a decent provider, it’s easy to join. Financial stability, a track record, and the right accreditations. If they’ve delivered well year on year, it’s unlikely they wouldn’t get in.

We also want to stop employers being ripped off by dodgy providers.

JIMMY WEBB:
Are there other benefits to being in the TPN?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Providers get access to demand data, not employer data, but insight into where demand is heading. They can collaborate with other providers to match supply and demand regionally.

It also builds credibility with employers and closer collaboration with CITB. Eventually, grant funding will only be paid to TPN providers.

JIMMY WEBB:
But it doesn’t guarantee bookings.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
No. Choice always sits with the employer.

JIMMY WEBB:
Health and safety courses are funded at 30 per cent of market rate. What feedback have you had?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Mixed feedback. It’s a shock to people who were used to SMSTS and SSSTS being largely funded.

We removed first aid funding because it’s mandatory. Funding it adds no value. Health and safety training does contribute to competence, especially for supervisors, so we retained it at a lower rate.

JIMMY WEBB:
First aid funding divides opinion.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
It’s not skills training. Imagine paying for all first aiders at Marks & Spencer. It doesn’t make sense.

We used it to engage small firms, but data shows larger companies claimed it most. It became transactional and didn’t address skills gaps.

JIMMY WEBB:
What happens to short courses booked before the changes?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
If they were booked before the cut-off date and evidence exists, we honour them. If there’s doubt, speak to your local adviser. We won’t be unreasonable.

JIMMY WEBB:
Employer networks operate on fixed budgets. How is funding distributed fairly?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
It’s challenging. We encourage training plans and needs analysis. Budgets must last the year.

There may be caps, possibly variable by company size. Decisions will ultimately sit with local employer network steering groups.

JIMMY WEBB:
Will employers know caps in advance?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Not yet, but they will for the next financial year.

JIMMY WEBB:
NVQs have caused concern, particularly the removal from employer networks.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
We increased NVQ funding last year due to grandfather rights, which drove unprecedented demand. We had to bring it back in line.

NVQs remain funded through the core grant scheme because they are competence-based.

JIMMY WEBB:
Some providers feel disadvantaged.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
That was never the intent. I’m happy to speak directly with affected providers. We don’t want to disadvantage anyone.

JIMMY WEBB:
There’s been confusion around the website and grant portal.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
The website isn’t great. We’re working on significant revisions and delayed launch to gather more feedback.

If there are issues with the portal, we can arrange webinars or open sessions to address concerns.

JIMMY WEBB:
Large employers won’t be supported by employer networks after March.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Employer networks were designed for small and micro firms. Large employers told us they didn’t suit their national footprint.

From April, we’ll introduce an interim large employer fund and consult properly with large employers on a future offer.

JIMMY WEBB:
Do we know what that interim offer looks like?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
It will simplify claims and align rates with employer networks. Employers will submit what they want to claim for, and we’ll agree what we can fund. Final figures aren’t decided yet.

JIMMY WEBB:
You mentioned earlier that you haven’t increased the levy. Inflation has gone up everywhere, hasn’t it? House prices, material costs, training fees, operational costs, subscriptions. Everything’s gone up. Why hasn’t the levy been increased to replenish the pot?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
It’s a three-year process and it takes a long time because of consultation and internal governance. What we typically do is speak to a number of employers and then come up with a set of options.

Those options go to our Levy Strategy Committee, which is made up of employer and employee representatives. One option may be increasing the levy, another may be keeping it the same.

The recommendation from that committee was to keep the levy rates the same. That then goes to our board, and the board signs it off. In a nutshell, that’s why the levy wasn’t increased. We don’t have another opportunity to do that for another two years.

JIMMY WEBB:
I just want to touch on the short notice period, which I missed earlier. I think Tim, the new director—

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Yeah, our CEO.

JIMMY WEBB:
He mentioned that part of the reason this had to be done now was that otherwise funding would have had to be taken away from apprentices. Is that right?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Yes. I’ll give you a bit more background. Tim’s absolutely right.

You might remember that we stopped the Skills and Training Fund earlier last year. We gave three months’ notice, and what happened was a surge in claiming. We ended up committing far more money than we ever anticipated.

So this time, the short notice was a conscious decision. We couldn’t risk that surge again. If we’d given two or three months’ notice on these changes, the surge in claims would have taken us beyond a spending level we were comfortable with. That would have meant more cuts.

As Tim said, the next place to cut would have been apprenticeship funding, and we don’t have the appetite to do that. We don’t think the industry does either.

From a customer perspective, this was a really uncomfortable space to be in. Internally, there were a lot of difficult conversations. I was very clear that this wasn’t how we wanted to treat our customers.

But ultimately, the financial decision has to win. We have to do what’s right for the industry and the organisation.

I’ve had uncomfortable conversations with some of our industry bodies about why they weren’t told earlier. But while we were operating a demand-led system, forecasting was extremely difficult, especially with newly engaged employers whose training behaviour we couldn’t predict.

The short notice was deliberate. It wasn’t comfortable, and it wasn’t enjoyable, but it was necessary to safeguard funding elsewhere. I genuinely care about our customers, and this decision bothered me greatly, but it was the right thing to do.

JIMMY WEBB:
Why would apprentices have been the next area to cut? Was it simply that everything else had already been covered?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
It’s not just apprentices, it’s new entrants more broadly. Our remaining funding is focused on new entrants: apprenticeships, the National Construction College, on-site hubs, sector plans. All of it supports new entrants and competence.

So any further cuts would have affected new entrants, and the industry has no appetite for that.

JIMMY WEBB:
That aligns with what you’ve said about prioritising new entrants.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Exactly.

JIMMY WEBB:
Is there any chance of a rise in the levy in the future?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Yes, absolutely. One of the options for the next consensus will be to increase the levy. That process is already being worked towards, but it is a long process.

JIMMY WEBB:
Earlier you mentioned reserves. What’s the difference between the pot and the reserves?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
The pot is the levy we bring in, around £200 million, plus commercial income. That’s what we run the business on.

We have to retain £50 million in reserves. That reserve isn’t all cash; it includes assets like colleges. But we cannot go below that floor because we have two months each year with no levy income and still need to pay grants.

It’s a cash-flow issue. One option in future could be collecting levy over 12 months, which might ease that pressure.

JIMMY WEBB:
Understood. Who do you think will be most negatively affected by these changes, and who stands to benefit most?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Those most negatively affected will be people focused solely on getting their levy back each year. That’s not what the system is designed for, and increasingly it won’t be.

There are two camps. One just wants the money back. The other wants to invest in training their workforce. For the second group, if they engage properly with us, we can still support them.

Those who will benefit most are employers engaged with apprentices, new entrant support, competence frameworks, and careers activity. Those who see the levy as an investment in the wider industry and use funding to support business development.

JIMMY WEBB:
What would you say to those who are frustrated or worried?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Come and talk to us.

We expected challenge, anger, and frustration, and that’s fine. I’ll take it, Tim will take it, the exec will take it. What I won’t accept is abuse of my team.

I understand frustration, but come and talk to us. We’re simplifying a complex system, and many people don’t yet fully understand what support is still available.

If you’re still frustrated after speaking to us, make a complaint and one of us at executive level will deal with it. But don’t abuse the people doing their jobs day to day.

JIMMY WEBB:
It’s a case of getting the facts straight before kicking off.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
And if you’re going to kick off, kick off at me.

JIMMY WEBB:
These are supposed to be professionals.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
We talk about culture in this industry. The same people shouting at my team are the ones later saying they can’t attract people into construction. It’s no wonder if that’s how they speak to people.

Let’s work together, collaborate, and see what value you can draw from CITB.

JIMMY WEBB:
Finally, what would you change if you could?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
In an ideal world, I’d increase the levy slightly so we could do more. I’d also accelerate system simplification so we can bring new entrants in more effectively.

JIMMY WEBB:
How do you think the industry would react?

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Some would welcome it, others would be frustrated. I’m not talking about big increases. It’s about minimising impact while enabling progress.

JIMMY WEBB:
That’s us done. Thank you, Deb. There’s a lot of information here, and I hope people really listen.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
I’ve enjoyed it. I felt challenged, which was good.

JIMMY WEBB:
Likewise. You’ve been very helpful and approachable, despite perceptions of CITB.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
We try to be.

JIMMY WEBB:
Thanks again for your time.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
It’s been great talking to you, Jimmy. Keep in touch.

JIMMY WEBB:
Bye.

DEBORAH MADDEN:
Bye.