GDSA single point of contact for Green Deal skills

Dear Sir,

I was delighted to see the launch of the Green Deal Skills Alliance (GDSA) featured so prominently on the front page of the 25 January edition of H&V News.

In bringing together SummitSkills, Asset Skills and ConstructionSkills to provide the skills infrastructure to support implementation of the Green Deal, the GDSA is an important development for the building services engineering sector.

Unfortunately the close proximity in the article of other Green Deal issues and industry quotes could lead to the impression that the GDSA is “yet another certification scheme”. 

This is emphatically not the case.

The underlying principle of the GDSA is to provide a single point of contact for all skills issues associated with the Green Deal – from energy assessment through to installation and commissioning of the various measures.

Employers and training providers will not have to wonder which sector skills council to engage with regarding Green Deal skills issues, they can all be handled through the GDSA.

As climate change minister Greg Barker said, the GDSA will help industry “get the right training and qualifications they will need in order to gain work under the Green Deal”.

I would be grateful for your assistance in clarifying this matter to your readers.

Keith Marshall OBE

Chief Executive, SummitSkills