Luke McCarthy, Green Economy Lead, Surrey County CouncilThe Retrofit Skills Roadmap which Gemserv produced for Surrey provided us with excellent new analysis and insights, with findings and recommendations clearly laid out. It will be a massive help in ensuring that we have the right retrofit skills provision in place to meet the county’s net zero commitments. The Gemserv team worked quickly to a tight timeline and were responsive to our needs and feedback.
THE CHALLENGE
Surrey County Council are the upper tier local authority for Surrey, covering 12 district councils. They have made ambitious climate change commitments and have also recently developed a Surrey Skills Plan.
The council recognised that retrofitting buildings is key to achieving net zero commitments and required support to produce a plan to inform the development of retrofit skills training.
THE SOLUTION
Surrey County Council commissioned Gemserv to produce a retrofit skills plan. To produce the Retrofit Skills Roadmap we delivered the following actions in four phases:
- Establishing a baseline for retrofit training in Surrey
- Modelling supply and demand for retrofit measures, installers and training
- Stakeholder engagement
- Retrofit action plan development
This culminated in a 30-page Retrofit Skills Roadmap report submitted to the South East Net Zero Hub and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
THE IMPACT
The completion of the Retrofit Skills Roadmap unlocked funding for Surrey County Council for the following activities in the first half of 2024:
- ~500 places for retrofit skills training.
- Retrofit-focused training/development opportunities for ten college/training provider staff.
- Two events to engage retrofit businesses with colleges and training providers.
Surrey County Council is also developing an implementation plan.
