Brake on housing upgrades

Failure to recruit trades personnel is risking delays in investment in council housing.

Stirling Council housing bosses say they are having major issues filling vacancies, with many receiving no applicants whatsoever.

The situation is being put down to the upturn in the fortunes of the private construction industry - who are now paying around 20 per cent more than local authorities.

The problem is causing difficulties in keeping up with their capital programme of improvement works.

It was brought up at a meeting of Stirling Council’s environment and housing committee last Thursday.

Housing service manager John Macmillan said: “There have been difficulties with recruitment of tradesmen and we have failed to recruit or even get applicants in some cases. We are therefore looking at procurement strategies and some locally based companies that can bolster our resources. We don’t have the flexibility we had when the construction industry was in downturn.”

Mr Macmillan suggested the ongoing recruitment issues were partly due to a widening gap in the council’s ability to meet market rates for skilled tradespeople.

“The problem is that public sector wages have been effectively frozen for the last five years. When the construction industry was at a low point our wages were on a par with the private sector relatively speaking on trades. What happened in five years, however, is that inflation rises and in the private sector construction industry wages have risen considerably - now 20 per cent higher probably than our wages.

“There’s pessure on all trades across Scotland to be involved in construction and no one is applying for our jobs because we are paying significantly under the private sector wage rates.

“We are getting no applicants whatsoever. We have long term vacancies and even issues getting agency workers. The situation now is that most agencies don’t have any tradespeople on their books. There has been no real serious impact on the budget. If we don’t carry out the work we’re not paying for it. To avoid impact on the service, however. it does mean we need to look at a procurement method to get beyond this. We need some measure of elasticity.”