Cementing best practice in building services

Evidence of success 

• The continued commitment to trade apprenticeships recognises the need to replace skilled tradespersons who are part of an increasingly aging workforce. The continuous cycle of “growing your own” - managed through age profiling and succession planning - has ensured the current numbers taken on since commencing the program stand at 196.
• The department has achieved a retention rate of around 88% representing a replacement of existing and aging workforce in the region of 31%. Many ex-apprentices have gone on to further their careers within Building Services. 
• The Saturday morning trade school programme actively encourages applications from female and minority groups: over 150 placements have been completed with 14% representation from females.
• In collaboration with the authority’s Education department, Building Services developed a structured recruitment approach creating opportunity for circa 40 placements per year and over 440 since 2007.
• Mentoring/Coaching work with agencies such as the Refugee resettlement program has helped to educate resettled refugees on site inductions and toolbox talks, Personal protective equipment (PPE), site tours and construction talks.
• Mentoring/Coaching work with internal departments such as Social services has helped to “link up” apprenticeship opportunities for looked after children (LAC) within the care of the Authority.
• There has been an upskilling of 23 labourers / Semi-skilled employees, qualified to NVQ level 2 in wet trades and Carpentry. This has been developed in conjunction with Unison and Unite, through Union Learning Reps (ULRs).
• 10,845 Training-Toolbox talks and E-Learning courses have been delivered between October 2013 and March 2018.  The average number of courses completed per person has increased from 13.07 to 17.30 within the last year.

In addition to the measurable successes in terms of impact on young people, the initiative also resulted in achieving significant progress in other areas including the attainment of IIP Accreditation ISO14002 in a range of business areas and Green Dragon Level 5 for its waste and sustainability initiatives. 

Future aspirations for the apprenticeship programme see the focus on professional apprentices and innovation as 2 key areas of development.  Recruitment is currently underway to place two professional apprentices within technical disciplines and will be expanded upon next year once pathways have been established. Areas of concern for future capacities are already highlighting the need for Quantity Surveyors, Estimators and Designers.

Building Services recently completed the first new build housing project delivered by the council for a generation which was an innovative “Passivhaus” development of 18 new houses and apartments.  Though this exposed a gulf between modern and traditional construction methodologies/technologies, the experience of delivering innovative fast track construction has proven extremely valuable to informing the process of working with Qualification Wales.  The department will use this experience to adapt training methods to incorporate new innovative building techniques to future proof our apprentices and existing trade skills sets, as well as the greater good of the City’s construction resource needs.

The same principles will be adopted across the Council, using the newly developed Council-wide Apprentice and Traineeship Strategy to instill a positive support mechanism, in relation to its existing staff via its Union Learning Reps (ULRs) joint trade union initiative.

The benefits of Apprentice mentors are more than evident, the same principles can be transferred and utilised by the work place “Buddies” to assist development of the Council existing workforce and help ready them for future challenges.

The future direction for the Council is an exciting and positive opportunity for internal collaboration which will offer up opportunities, through empowerment, development and positive engagement with our greatest asset, staff, and an area of huge potential which will result in magnified impacts.

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