Insiders Says ‘Incompetence and Mismanagement’ Rule at CITB

An anonymous whistleblower has disclosed the reasons they believe why there is no money left for training at the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB).

It follows the news that CITB’s budget has run out for its Employer Networks to pay for construction firms’ training needs.

The source, who fearing recriminations wishes to remain unnamed, claims incompetent decisions and mismanagement in the past 12 months are the reasons why CITB is now unable to fund training until the new financial year.

The CITB insider says chaotic decisions and mismanaged expenditure don’t just describe the organisation’s approach to training funds. They say unnecessary and “pointless” six-figure expenditure was incurred just a fortnight before CITB gave four weeks notice to industry that it was slashing funding and grants on 8^th December.

In the last week of November 2025, CITB told its 750 staff to attend a five-hour internal conference at Old Trafford Cricket Club in Manchester. The cost was considerable – staff were paid to travel from all over the UK with many needing overnight accommodation.

The reason for this costly event? To inform staff of possible changes to funding.

However, strangely, staff were given no details of the imminent funding cuts about to hit industry. When they were announced two weeks’ later the cuts were as much of a shock to most CITB staff as they were to the industry, the anonymous source alleges. The expensive event had been “pointless,” they commented.

Don’t Tell Industry

Furthermore, CITB staff were subsequently instructed not to contact companies to inform them about the changes to training funding announced on 8^th December, despite the fact that firms had just four weeks to prepare, with the Christmas holiday shutdown included in that period.

Similarly, CITB staff were told only 10 working days before the latest suspension of Employer Networks training funds. They were also told not to depart from a scripted standard reply if asked by construction companies why funding was stopped.

The informer reports that this month CITB staff were tasked with contacting companies who have employed apprentices to ask them to return grants they were paid but are not entitled to. Firms are being told they were paid the grants due to an ‘administrative error’ and asked to return up to thousands of pounds.

The CITB informer ends with a warning about when Employer Networks are allowed to resume booking training once the new financial year starts. They say that firms will see that funds for training will be “severely” restricted compared to the previous provision.

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