Skills North East - The Regional Skills Partnership

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Asset Skills

Asset Skills Regional contact:

Carol Shillito
Project Executive
Asset Skills
Women & Work Project
T: 07769713221
E: cshillito@assetskills.org

www.assetskills.org

Learning and Skills Council Contact: sally.gardner@lsc.gov.uk

Click here for the Asset Skills North East Fact Sheet

Useful Links: Construction Skills and Summit Skills

Overview of the sector in the North East

The sector covers all businesses and people involved in the maintenance and development of the built environment for the benefit of employers, individuals, residents and communities, lying at the interface between people and the built environment. The sector includes certain surveyors, property managers, residential estate agents, caretakers, facilities management professionals, cleaners, town planners, letting agents and housing managers.

This is a highly significant sector both in terms of the numbers employed and the support services that it provides to other businesses in the region. Around 25,312 people are employed in the North East with growth forecasted at 35% (2002-14). (Regional Fact Sheet 2005)

The sector has an important role to play in social inclusion, providing paths into employment and in raising basic skills levels. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005)

Housing covers the public and private sector and includes voluntary sector landlords, private landlords, registered social landlords and tenant managed organisations.

In the NE, the proportion of the workforce in the sector in the NE aged 16-24 is significantly lower than nationally. Over half of the workforce in the region is aged 24-44 years. 41% of the workforce is over 45 years. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005)

49% of the workforce is female. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005)

Proportion of workforce with NVQ3+ or equivalent: 40%. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005)

Key issues facing the sector now and in the future

A new qualification is becoming legislation from June 2007 for domestic energy assessors. Estate agents and surveyors need to be made aware of this legislation as currently there are no training providers in the region to meet this need. (Lister 2005)

The convergence of the key groups within this broader sector is being driven by the rapid emergence of Facilities Management[1] as an industry. There is a growing number of private sector companies covering the full spectrum of services offered, for example Rentokil Initial, MITIE Group, Morrison Facilities Management, OCS, ISS and CIRO. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005)

Employment Issues in the North East

Current and forecast recruitment demand (either for growth or replacement)

Significant growth within property is expected from 12,500 to 17,000 individuals between 2004 - 2014 according to the Institute for Employment Research (IER) at Warwick University. Significant increases are anticipated for housing/welfare officers from 14% to 25.5% and resident wardens 4.2% to 9.8%.

Recruitment difficulties and causes

The sector faces a constant challenge in recruitment and turnover problems as well as having skills gaps and shortages. The North East has a higher proportion of vacancies (26%) compared with all sectors of the North East economy. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005)

582 (26%) of North East firms reported vacancies. 182 firms (8.1%) reporting hard to fill vacancies. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005 based on NESS 2003) There are considerable difficulties recruiting town planners and block managers within the property sectors. More females are required to become chartered surveyors as they only represent 10% of the profession.

Retention issues

The cleaning sub sector experiences problems in:

Lack of long term investment in staff
Staff shortages which increases ‘poaching’
Level of work intensity
Management styles
Loss of benefits
Developing more attractive cleaning jobs

The housing sector has retention issues within individual organisations based on specific roles, for example housing/welfare officers.

In the property sector, retention issues are significantly different between occupations, with lower turnover rates amongst surveying staff who tend to be older and ‘in for the duration’, and high turnover rates amongst support staff. (Lister 2005)

Attracting people into the sector

There is difficulty in attracting people into all of Asset Skills’ sectors as a career of first choice. The barriers range from the perceived lack of pay and kudos in the cleaning sector, to a perceived lack of professionalism within the property sector. Housing and facilities management roles are likely to appeal to people over 25. (Lister 2005)

Skill requirements of new recruits

There is a need to address 'Skills For Life', in particular, numeracy & literacy for each sub-sector. The cleaning sub-sector is a priority for this type of learning, with Asset Skills having just produced new level 2 cleaning & support services.

Additionally, all sub sectors have the following skill requirements:

ICT (within the cleaning sector for supervisors & managers)
Management & Leadership
Customer care / service skills
Sophistication of products, services and systems
Team working
Increased interface with customers
Influencing skills
Advocacy
Working in partnership with others
Managing diversity
Entrepreneurial skills
Business management
Change management.
Legislation knowledge specific to the industry

Workforce Development in the North East

Skills shortages/gaps in existing workforce and latent skills issues where known

67 firms (3%) reported skills shortages with 26% of firms reporting internal skills gaps. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005 from NESS 2003)

Where employers report skills gaps, 39% are amongst elementary staff (which includes cleaners) and 15% are amongst those employed in ‘skilled trades’. However, it should be noted that the sector spans a wide variety of occupations. At one end of the continuum Asset Skills represents highly qualified professional staff such as chartered surveyors and at the other, occupations such as cleaning operatives who often have low/no formal qualifications. The figures presented here are aggregated to include all four of Asset Skills sub sectors and should not be used as a representative reflection of skill needs in any of these individual sectors. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005 from NESS 2003)

Data from the Labour Force Survey shows that in the North East, 31,453 employees work in Asset Skills’ footprint. Of these, 5,948 (18.9%) work in elementary occupations and have no qualifications. This is an area, which could be prioritised in terms of upskilling the workforce in the North East. (Lister 2005)

Region	Total no. of Asset Skills employees	Total no. of Asset Skills employees in Elementary occupations without qualifications	% of Asset Skills workforce in Elementary occupation without qualifications	% of Asset Skills employees in elementary occupations who have not received training in the last 13 weeks
North East	31,453	5,948	18.9	92
Total	524,456	73,988	------	----

Source: SSC from ONS Annual LFS 2003

Future skills demand

Over a third of the vacancies notified to Jobcentre Plus are from this sector both in the North East and nationally. The largest proportion of these vacancies is amongst elementary staff and administrative staff. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005)

Prioritisation of skills issues within the industries

There are currently no facilities management courses available within the North East.

Learning and Skills Infrastructure in the North East

Lack of suitable courses in the area was stated to be a barrier for only 9% of construction companies compared to 14% nationally. Similarly, lack of suitable courses generally was considered a barrier for only 7% of companies in the North East compared to 12% nationally. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005 from NESS 2003)

Barriers to employers accessing the skills provision they need

45% of employers report no barriers to training. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005 from NESS 2005) A significantly higher proportion of companies in the North East reported no barriers to training in the sector than nationally. The most common barrier to training amongst companies in the sector in the North East was a lack of time for training. All the barriers, however, were less significant for companies in the region than nationally. (Regional Fact Sheet 2005 from NESS 2005)

60% of firms that have provided funding for staff training within the previous 12 months.

Best Practice

National Housing Federation’s ‘Bright Futures Campaign’ – aims to attract people into the housing sector.
Pathway card – an electronic CV that records cleaners’ skills (Asset Skills, CSSA, BICSc and BCC).

References
Lister 2005 - Lisa Lister

_[1]_{Facilities Managers are responsible for a wide range of services relating to business support and infrastructure. This could range from property procurement and portfolio management to the provision of day-to-day support services such as catering, cleaning, maintenance and security. The statistics from the LFS are lower than the ABI. The main reason for this is that the LFS counts people in employment, whereas the ABI counts workforce jobs. Thus, an individual with two jobs will be counted twice in the ABI, but only once in the LFS. However, the LFS is the only nationally available dataset which provides information on workforce qualifications.}

_{[1] NE SNE Skills Dialogue 2004}

_{[1] Ibid}

_{[1] Location spend figures have risen every year since Northern Film & Media was created in Oct 2002 when they stood at just £1.5m. A total of £8.47m was spent by film and television companies and some 86 productions shot here during 2004 compared to 71 in 2003. During 2004 the NE attracted seven TV films/mini series, 17 light entertainment programmes and 26 commercial/promotional productions. NFM notable successes include Emmy award winning the Boy whose skin Fell Off and School for Seduction.}

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