Sector needs ‘short-term solution’ to labour shortages, says Abri CEO

The housing and construction sectors need a ‘short term solution’ while the government works on a longer-term fix for the skills crisis, the chief executive of Abri has said.

Skilled labour shortages were a prominent topic on the first day of the Housing Community Summit, including in a main stage panel discussion on delivering homes through partnerships.

Chair Kirsty Wark asked the panellists whether a skilled worker visa scheme for European construction workers could offer a potential answer for the government as it seeks to find the skilled workforce to ramp up delivery. 

Gary Orr, group chief executive at the 58,00-home provider, said that “yes, there is a need for a short term solution”, while emphasising that using immigrant labour could not be the only solution in the long-term. 

“Alongside that, because of the nature of this as a 10-year settlement, I think it does offer the opportunity to genuinely think long and strategically about building the next generation of workforce,” he said, addressing the possibilities enabled by settlement for housing announced by the government in the spending review. 

“This is an enormous opportunity for our sector to think strategically, long term, engage with the education sector and see it really as a massive opportunity to re-skill a workforce that otherwise we would be outsourcing to Europe for the next 10 years”.

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Wark asked Homes England chair Pat Ritchie whether funding from the body could come with strings attached for training up local workers.

“In a number of areas, we would always put in place local labour clauses, […] recruitment of apprenticeships deals with skills academies or with colleges,” said Ritchie.

The Housing Community Summit is organised by the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation and runs for two days.