Construction Industry Training Board freezes pay rises and bonuses until 2021

Construction Industry Training Board

Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has put a freeze on pay increases and has also postponed its performance related bonus payments for all of its employees.

The decision which has been put in place until 2021, will affect all of its 850 employees. These recent measures follow on from the executive team taking a voluntary 20% pay cut, with an additional 50 employees taking similar pay cuts at reduced hours. In April 2020, the organisation also furloughed 400 out of its 850 employees.

Due to the financial impact of the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic, the organisation wants to reduce levy bills by 25% over the next two years, saving an estimated total of £166 million for construction businesses. The organisation is currently consulting with its employees and their union representatives over the prospect of redundancies.

Jennifer King, people director at CITB, said: “We need to do all we can with reduced funding to protect apprenticeships and direct funding to businesses. That does mean we need to get CITB’s finances in a stronger position, reducing our own costs and streamlining our business, ensuring we can meet the new skills challenges our industry faces.

“The truth is that given the very challenging economic climate we, like so many others, can not simply carry on with business as usual and need to react quickly. That means making difficult choices, but they are always made with fairness and affordability at heart, and our brilliant [employees} and construction employers in mind.”