About the MHA+ Skills Community

The Midlands Highways Alliance Plus (MHA+) Skills Community has a broad remit, which includes offering construction/highways specific learning, training and development opportunities, improved access to approved professional development schemes, in conjunction with partners such as Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the Transport Planning Society (TPS).

The skills community assists in building the capacity and capability of the existing workforce to help address the skills shortages that the construction industry is anticipating. Enhancing development opportunities and working with others will inspire a diverse range of talented people to join the construction industry.

Activities include community and school engagement projects including the ‘Bridge to Schools’ programme, which is organised in collaboration with ICE and our framework suppliers.

In 2015, Midlands Highways Alliance achieved accreditation by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) as the Client Based Skills Academy.

What is the Client Based Approach?

The CITB worked with the construction industry to draw up a guide to the number of skills outputs that could be applied to particular types and values of construction projects. This is called the Client based Approach. The guidance includes benchmarks to provide developers with confidence that their employment and skills requirements are both proportionate and achievable. They are set across Construction, Repairs and Maintenance and Highways projects.

The framework suppliers, MHA+ members, as well as professional bodies work collaboratively with  to provide opportunities to build the skills of their staff, the supply chain and the local community.

The MHA Employment and Skills Plan (ESP) forms part of our social capital strategy that boosts skills, and ensures that construction projects support the development of initiatives to meet learning and development needs and address skills gaps. We have incorporated activities based on national best practice and those developed by Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) into the ESP

An ESP will be completed each eligible scheme on the MHA Framework (target price over £1M). This plan sets out how they will support skills development across 14 different activity areas.

In addition, MSF 3 is providing data that enables an overview of how schemes are building social value (bsv). The bsv template can be downloaded from the secure information sharing platform