Building trades training another mirage?

In recent weeks the building industry has once again been sending out agonised cries for help to solve its problem of shortage of skilled labour. This agony comes about two years after the industry emasculated the Construction Industry Training Board, especially the section concerned with operative training. Now, according to a recent article in The Guardian, desperate employers in the middle of a boom have asked the CITB to appoint a specialist to study the training and supply of new craftsmen. ‘David Algate, aged 39, a former surveyor and Tory city councillor in Plymouth started his new job this week.’ Ironically Mr Algate is a survivor of a CITB team of ‘specialists’ who developed and attempted to institute new patterns of training craft apprentices in 1968/69 and his qualifications and experience are somewhat more substantial than having once been a Tory city councillor.