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How are we delivering the low carbon challenge?
CIC is responsible for the industry-defined Professional, Managerial and Technical National Occupational Standards that provide the benchmark for defining the ‘Future Skills’ needs of the professional community.
Rapidly changing industry work patterns, new technology and legislation and the national policy demands of low carbon and energy use, require new ways of operating. Increasingly, the built environment and its infrastructure need to be seen as an integrated ‘whole-life’ process including development, construction, ongoing servicing and operation.
All this creates pressing and emerging ‘future skills’ changes that require addressing urgently if organisations, existing practitioners and those entering the industry are to perform effectively and meet government and sector targets. Individuals need to operate with up-to-date competence and knowledge in increasingly flexible and mobile work roles and develop along career pathways that may cross traditional boundaries. This poses a huge challenge to identify and provide the skills and learning needed across the sector.
Functional Map for Professional, Managerial & Technical Occupations
The Construction Industry Council (CIC) has completed work to update the Built Environment Functional Map. The map provides a complete structured picture of the vast array of work functions and skills required for the sector to operate effectively within the overall economy, and is similar in some ways to a detailed ‘mission statement’.
The map identifies the emerging future skills changes - encompassing issues such as
- Carbon criticality
- Sustainability
- Sustainable communities
- Operating methods
- Modern methods of construction
- Flood risk management
- Sustainable solutions for historic and heritage assets
The Functional Map provides a progressive ‘family tree’ view of the functions and skills found in the sector. These functions have been identified by working with employers and practitioners 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.
This updated map will provide a fundamental platform, helping to co-ordinate the SSCs’ work and also identify gaps and changes in each individual area. This will inform the sector’s qualifications frameworks of whether new qualifications would be required, or existing ones require updating.
Functional Analysis
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 result in the identification of six major functions - called Key Areas - A to F is 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.
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