Following up on the previous year: recommendations from the 2006 conference

In a precursor to the workshop sessions on day two of the 2007 Conference, President of the SEC Group, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, chaired a panel discussion between David Pollock of the ECA, Robert Higgs of the HVCA and Newell McGuiness of SELECT, on the progress of the recommendations resulting from the 2006 conference workshops.

The Conference Working Party (CWP) had set up five projects and worked with the relevant supporting associations and their members to develop the reports on sustainability and technological change, training and skills, industry demand creation, M&E industry profile and lobbying.

The three reported that:

• The ECA and HVCA have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding on the issue of sustainability, pledging their commitment to approach sustainability jointly.
• Over the last year much information had been collected regarding the sector’s skill and training needs. Concerningly, however, research indicated a widespread lack of appreciation of the longer term threat skills gaps pose to the industry.
• Manufacturers are constantly developing new technology, but there is not yet a system in place to train contractors to work with it.
• The Electrical Distributors' Association (EDA) has developed not only a range of vocational qualifications but also a suite of product knowledge modules, which can lead to a formal qualification.
• Cooperation through the SEC Group has been very successful in raising the M&E banner.
• There has been a considerable increase in the combined initiatives and activities undertaken jointly amongst the three Associations.
• The ECA has set up a reporting system to communicate its schedule of forthcoming legislation and lobbying topics to Electrical Industry Forum (EIF) members. Together, the EIF members recommend each organisation identify its priorities enabling them jointly to decide whether a single high priority issue would benefit from a joint taskforce to co-ordinate the best approach.

 For the future they also advocated the following

• enhanced industry-wide co-ordination to ensure the sufficient availability of UK contractors with the necessary skills to install new technology
• encouraging members of the Associations to see the environmental agenda as a massive business opportunity, raising members’ awareness and exciting them about the opportunities
• working together as an industry to increase profits by adding value through application of new and sustainable technologies
• doing all we can to encourage clients to want more sophisticated installations, continuing to lobby for fiscal incentives and raising awareness of the operational and lifetime cost benefits of running effective and sophisticated installations.

Considerable progress in each of these topics had been achieved by adopting a joined-up approach and working with the relevant supporting industry bodies – a practical demonstration of the 2007 conference theme.