Engaging with tenants and utilising their expertise should be at the forefront of the green-skills challenge.
That’s according to a new sector insight report by CIH Cymru and Aico, which highlights the “vast” challenge in harnessing the skills needed to deliver the sector’s climate-related goals.
As part of the report, CIH Cymru and Aico engaged a wide range of professionals to understand the contemporary picture around skills linked to delivering on some of the biggest ambitions in the sector – from building 20,000 low-carbon social homes to improving the quality and safety of existing buildings.
The importance of engaging with tenants to alleviate concerns about new technologies to make homes as efficient as possible and empower their effective use was seen as a major priority.
Respondents felt tenant expertise could be further harnessed to refine how organisations approach home-improvement.
Further, the opportunity to offer training and routes into new types of employment for tenants and local communities need to be harnessed, respondents felt – especially against the backdrop of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
Other challenges were also prevalent in discussions, including how organisations access sustainable finance and how supply chains can cope with demand whilst allowing for local sourcing of expertise and components.
The report suggests a number of tangible steps that could see further progress in this area, including scoping the creation of a housing skills academy for Wales, sharing expertise between organisations, and holding knowledge about the effectiveness of retrofitting measures in one place to support sector learning.
‘We can’t ignore the opportunity’
Matt Dicks, national director at CIH Cymru, said: “The approaches we use to improve homes is often a highly technical area of housing activity.
“But our conversation with the sector captures the importance with which tenant expertise must play in informing, shaping, and scrutinising the approach organisations adopt.
“Whilst we know that the skills needed to realise the ambitious housing vision we all hold for Wales will require a huge boost in new skills and expertise across the sector, we can’t ignore the opportunity this presents.
“For communities living with the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic alongside the cost-of-living crisis, we must do more to ensure those communities are the ones that benefit most from the boost to employment and economic activity this effort represents.”
Reflecting on the work, Aico relationship manager Tina Mistry said: “We would like to thank CIH Cymru for their support in identifying the importance of engaging with residents to alleviate concerns about new technologies within the homes.
“The creation of a housing skills academy for Wales can only be achieved through true collaborative working, as we need to ensure that every department within the housing sector is not just educated but also empowered to be able to drive this agenda forward.
“This will also require support from the education sector to develop the future generations, contractors to be upskilled, and most importantly of all, to ensure that residents from all tenures are part of the journey.”
Image: azem/Shutterstock
Read next: The Welsh housing association waging a war against poverty
Are you a social housing professional? Sign up for a FREE MEMBERSHIP to upload news stories, post job vacancies, and connect with colleagues on our secure social feed.