Written question WQ85842

There is already a variety of work underway to help us understand the skills requirements of the housing sector. Working in partnership with stakeholders, Welsh Government is identifying and developing steps to meet the needs of the future workforce, including identifying skills gaps, training needs, and development issues.

We know there are challenges facing the housing sector, including increased demand on housing sector skills. We are working to develop a new Housing Pact, which will be a tripartite agreement between Welsh Government, Community Housing Cymru and the WLGA. The Pact will demonstrate the collective intention to create an even stronger working relationship, express the challenges we face together as a housing sector and outline commitments to work together to overcome these. This includes challenges such as the current skills shortage.

We also have work underway to address skills needs in specific parts of the housing sector. For example, work is underway to address the system’s needs regarding decarbonisation and retrofit activities. Retrofitting housing stock requires a whole system approach. Wider systemic change is essential to success in terms of skills, supply chains, materials, and procurement if we are to decarbonise at scale and with pace.

Our approach reflects the need to grow the number of home assessors, upskill installers, develop the technology and support commercial businesses in the supply chain to grow and mature into the green retrofit market.

Through our Optimised Retrofit Programme (ORP) we are working to address these skills needs. This has involved close liaison with Wales’s four Regional Skills Partnerships (RSP) and their Construction Forums. A recent key element of this work has been undertaking a Skills Survey which has led to a Draft Skills Matrix that will publish in August. This work will feed into the wider efforts to develop the Net Zero Skills Plan.

The Wales Net Zero Skill Plan, due to be published in December 2022, includes the residential buildings sector and covers emissions from energy usage in homes, as well as work to reduce embodied carbon in constructing and retrofitting residential properties. In developing the plan, we are working closely with the housing and construction sector who will be central to its development.