Built Environment Skills Alliance (BESA)

CIC is a member of the Built Environment Skills Alliance (BESA) which is predominantly an advisory and liaison group of Sector Skills Councils working within the built environment with a focus on development issues. It will aim to work through its members and to promote and encourage joint working and a partnership approach where this is appropriate and likely to add value. Other members of the Alliance include AssetSkills, CITB ConstructionSkills, CITB NI, ECITB, Energy and Utility Skills, Pro Skills and Summit Skills.

'Towards a Construction and Built Environment Higher Education Strategy: ensuring an informed conversation on issues faced by the Construction and Built Environment sectors where higher education can offer solutions' 

In Janury 2009 Construction and Built Environment education experts and employers came together at a conference led by David Lammy MP, Minister for Higher Education and Intellectual Property Rights, to forge a way forward for the sector’s Higher Education strategic provision.   

The conference, hosted by the Built Environment Skills Alliance (BESA) formed of 6 built environment Sector Skills Councils (including ConstructionSkills), brought together 150 stakeholders from education and the construction and Built Environment industries to discuss the key skills challenges being faced, and how Higher Education (HE) could be augmented to provide solutions which meet employers’ needs. 

It examined the need to recruit and skill new entrants and reskill mature entrants and the existing workforce in the face of economic, demographic and sector challenges; the need to help better articulate employer needs within Higher Education Institutions’ curricula and provision; and the need to consider the pattern of where learning best takes place, including collaborative approaches to delivery and shared data provision between employers, Higher Education Institutions and Professional Institutions.  

Following a key note speech from David Lammy MP, Hugh Tollyfield of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, Chris Humphries of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills and Professor Barry Clarke of the University of Leeds addressed the conference – intensive working group discussions enabled participants to identify key issues and targets. 

A major initiative developed on the back of the conference is the development of a ‘virtual sounding board’ of experts who contribute to an emerging strategy. This will feed directly into the BESA Higher Education Strategy Delivery Group whose agenda covers Needs and Recruitment, Curriculum and Provision and Provision Delivery.

The Conference Report records the proceedings and also outlines the way forward and next steps intended by the BESA organisations. 

For further information contact David Cracknell (dcracknell@cic.org.uk)

Review and analysis of a consolidated functional map covering the built environment (in conjunction with the Built Environment Skills Alliance SSCs/SSBs)

Background

This project was led by the Construction Industry Council in conjunction with the Built Environment Skills Alliance (BESA) comprising the following Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) and Standards Setting Bodies (SSBs): AssetSkills, ConstructionSkills, ECITB, Energy & Utility Skills, ProSkills and SummitSkills. The establishment of the present SSCs/SSBs and coming together of BESA with their individual and collective remit to address the skills agenda in the economy has focused attention on collaborative working where there are areas of common skills and qualification interests and needs. In consequence, BESA identified “Developing a broad functional map for the built environment” a priority activity in its programme of work.  

The project brings together the extant functional maps and National Occupational Standards suites across the built environment, to create for the first time a complete view of the sector and the huge array of functions and skills that contribute to its significant place and purpose within the UK economy.

Purpose and use of the Built Environment Functional Map

The consolidated Functional Map is intended for use by the SSCs themselves, education and training providers, in-house training departments, accreditation and certification bodies awarding bodies, regulatory bodies; as well as being useful for public access to gain an overview of the built environment sector. The map also provides ‘directory’ access/links/cross reference to sources of the individual NOS.

The Consolidated Functional map provides, at its most basic, the public with an overview of the industry - a visible picture of the scope of the sector for public use – including for careers/recruitment and an introduction to the immense range of occupational coverage across the built environment.

The map will enable the built environment SSCs/SSBs to:

• identify the scope and coverage of the whole built environment sector to enable economic and skills planning
• forecast and tackle skills issues collectively relating to massive challenges facing the sector and its patterns of working
• deliver NOS that straddle different footprints at the higher levels
• facilitate lateral and vertical progression and career development between built environment occupational areas, particularly through the adoption of an integrated mix of appropriate NOS for ‘bridging’ occupational roles and qualifications
• develop individual qualifications which meet requirements across and in sector boundaries;
• identify and provide for the first time a clear built environment philosophy and focus that facilitates education and training provision and qualifications providing cross-discipline/occupation approaches
• provide a tool for future development work to avoid duplication, and develop a natural evolution towards more commonly shared functions
• provide a tool for identifying/accessing sector-wide NOS for SSCS/SSBs and regulators
• provide a stimulus for the need to agree a common format and level of detail for NOS development within individual sectors

The BESA SSCs/SSBs intend to update the map on a biennial basis.

The map has a Key Purpose, to: “Plan, design, construct, manage and maintain the sustainable development and use of the natural and built environment and its infrastructure, balancing the requirements of all stakeholders”.

The functional mapping analysis is set out in the accompanying documents – the complete map (which is extensive and is best viewed as 12 A3 size sheets), and a summary map (which covers the key ‘upper’ part of the map only). This indicates the existing Key Purpose, 6 Key Areas, 36 Key Roles and 128 Key Units. Against each of these is given the relevant SSC/SSB Unit references and titles from each of the separate SSC/SSB maps/suites.

Viewing the Functional Map.

The Map provides a progressive ‘family tree’ view of the functions and skills found in the sector. These functions have been identified by SSCs/SSBs foe their own sector by working with employers and practitioners from their respective areas over many years to provide a specification of the many areas of competence required by individuals to operate effectively in the workplace – ultimately the ‘tree’ results in Occupational Standards for individuals. 

The Occupational Standards are developed by a process of functional analysis that identifies ‘outcomes’ – what people need to achieve. The analysis describes the whole sector – and starts with a description of the overall ‘purpose’ of the industry within the economy – called the Key Purpose.

The analysis proceeds by asking ‘what needs to be done in order to achieve this key purpose?’ This results in the identification six major functions - called Key Areas - A to F are essential to the achievement of the Key Purpose. Having identified the six key areas, each is then subjected to further analysis - each time the question is asked ‘what needs to be done in order to achieve this key function?’ This next level of analysis is called Key Roles.

The next stage takes the Key Role statements and breaks them down to further detail reached which approximates to a Unit of competence - an outcome which is significant and meaningful within the industry.

Finally, each unit is detailed into Occupational Standards to which criteria for successful performance are attached and the range of applications stated. These are obtainable from the respective individual SSCs/SSBs. As will be noted, there are presently a number of areas where the same or similar functions are covered by different SSCs/SSBs – over time it is hoped that there can be a degree of rationisation in this respect.