Federation of Plastering and Drywall Contractors chief executive Paul Jessop said: “CITB is a relic from a previous era based on a theory that has proved not to work.
“Whatever they may claim, CITB has clearly lost touch with employers and continually tries to shoe-horn employers into its inflexible practices – anyone dealing with CITB will tell you how infuriating and wasteful they are, and that doesn’t help advance training at all.”
The federation wants the government to abolish the CITB rather than consider plans to privatise it
Jessop added: “Employers are in the best position to decide what training their staff need and can get much better value without CITB.
“We need a new approach that makes it the employers’ responsibility to train their staff properly, based on the competitive advantage of a skilled and trained workforce.”
The federation believes many parts of the industry pay millions in levy but get very little back.
President Gavin Colclough said: “One of our largest members has seen training grant income topple from over £100,000 to just £8,000 this year – that doesn’t even begin to pay for the administration needed for such a bureaucratic system.
“CITB is hanging on to our money to try to recover from its own problems. Construction has seen thousands laid off yet the money supposedly collected to train the construction workforce is being squandered on keeping thousands of CITB employees that are just not needed. ”