BSA review
The Minister for Public Works and ICT Robert Schwarten and the BSA Board, have commissioned KPMG to independently review the Queensland Building Services Authority (BSA) and to make recommendations on changes necessary to ensure the BSA has the best structures, systems and practices in place.
KPMG is inviting submissions from interested parties to provide feedback, views and ideas with regard to improving the functions and services provided by the BSA. We will put forward a submission to the review with a view to making the BSA licensing arrangements more relevant to the needs of the Civil Construction industry.
Skills Queensland proposal
We have recently put forward a submission to the Queensland Government’s proposal to create Skills Queensland. Its role would be an industry-led body to drive training, investment and skills reforms in Queensland. It will provide industry with a direct role in driving skills development to meet the needs of a growing economy.
Skills Queensland will empower industry leaders to direct investments in skills and workforce development, and to lead in vocational educational and training system.
The new body will develop vocational training and labour market programs and plan priorities for skilled migration into Queensland. It will support the development and implementation of training plans for emerging industries and effective responses to critical events such as the closure or downsizing of major employers.
Skills Queensland would produce a 5 year plan for skills in Queensland called the Training and employment investment plan. This would identify priorities for government and make recommendations for delivery of vocational education and government funding arrangements for workforce development.
Our response recommended that the Training and Employment Investment Plan should be a published document, so that industry can use it to plan where training opportunities exist. We believe that publicly funded research such as the plan, which has a five year scope and is researched using government resources, should be made available to the public on an annual basis.
A report such as this, would provide a useful tool for private enterprise and policy makers at all levels, to determine areas of market failures in training and move resources to the areas where the need exists.
The CCF paper also recommended that Skills Queensland must be provided with the resources when creating the plan, in order for it to be a useful tool for government and private industry, when making decisions based on future skills capacity.
The scope of the plan should be broadened to include information that gives industry and policy makers a snapshot of where skills shortages are occurring within specific industry sectors and the reasons for those shortages.
The make-up of the membership of Skills Queensland is imperative to the success of the body. Queensland already has a number of training advisory committees in place and so it is important that Skills Queensland does not simply mirror these organisations. CCF would advocate an approach that would encourage new faces on the board of Skills Queensland.
New CCF team members
I am pleased to welcome two new staff members to our team. Helen Osborn comes to the CCF as member support officer with a strong background in civil construction. She has worked in customer service and administration for the last 15 years, in all sectors of the construction industry, including commercial and civil.
For the last 2 years she has been at the SAFElink Alliance (Leighton/BMD joint venture) (Ipswich Motorway/Centenary Highway $820m upgrade) as part of the sub alliance with Boral Asphalt as a cost/contracts administrator for not only SAFElink but also the mobile asphalt plant at Redbank. Helen says she “finds the civil industry to be challenging and fascinating, as it is the grass roots of all infrastructure.”
I also welcome Olivia Clark to the CCF team as my executive assistant. Olivia comes to the CCF from the civil aviation industry and completed a degree in communications, double majoring in journalism and public relations.
