The lack of an adequately trained workforce is, arguably, the single most important issue faced by the construction industry. Apart from the fact that skilled workers produce a better product, the question of training underlies site safety, the rush for off-site manufacturing, the use and abuse of immigrant labour and the industry's capacity to build the hospitals, schools and houses that are needed. For the past 10 years, the industry has been working on a way of ensuring that workers are skilled: the Construction Skills Certification Scheme, also known as the CSCS card scheme. The goal is to require that, eventually, all workers must own a card before they are admitted to a site - and at present 629,000 workers in 200 trades do. During their lifespan, the cards have incorporated more sophisticated anti-fraud technology and they have won backing from important players, such as deputy prime minister John Prescott. But now this plan is being threatened by a power struggle over who should control the cards: the CSCS board, which owns the scheme, or the Construction Industry Training Board, which administers it.
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