Following the report by the National Heritage Training Group identifying skills shortages in conservation, a second Heritage Training Advisor has been appointed to work with the Group.

He is Richard Groom, a carver and mason from Edinburgh who has worked with several of the stonemasonry companies in Scotland on projects such as carvings for Jenners department store in Edinburgh and column capitals for a project in High Street, Dundee, which he has just finished. On the purely artistic side, sculptures including a sandstone tiger and Carrara marble polar bear have sold through Harrods in London.

He joins the National Heritage Training Group to cover Scotland and the North of England, working with Simon Holmes, who was appointed last year and covers the rest of England and Wales. They report to training officer Beverley Peters, appointed in 2003 as the permanent officer of the NHTG and currently on maternity leave.

The National Heritage Training Group (NHTG) was formed in 2003 by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) in a unique arrangement with English Heritage that included funding from English Heritage .

The Group\'s first task was to put some figures on the market and its training needs, which they did in a report called Traditional Building Craft Skills published in June this year and presenting the results of research into the market.

That identified the need for another 500 stonemasons and fixers, dry stone wallers and flint knappers among a total skills shortage of 6,500 individuals (see NSS July issue) in an industry worth £3.5billion.

Simon Holmes, who has a background as a building surveyor. He took a degree in building conservation at Huddersfield and worked with the National Trust for four years before joining the NHTG last year.

He says they needed the Traditional Building Craft Skills report so that they better understood the market and had some facts to back up their arguments for the need for training.

As a result of that the NHTG is now working to develop a stand-alone level three NVQ in heritage skills. Currently heritage units are add-ons to other building skills NVQs.

The new NVQ will link all the heritage trades together with an overall philosophy of minimal intervention and reversibility and then break out into specific trades. At level three, NVQs are intended to be the vocational equivalent of \'A\' levels in academia.

It is hoped the NVQ will be introduced next year and then the NHTG will encourage colleges to run courses to enable students to gain the qualification. "At present there are no colleges equipped to deliver this NVQ," says Simon.

To promote heritage training the NHTG is currently running a project called training the trainers, which is giving existing college lecturers the chance to attend a total of three weeks of intensive courses over the period of 12 months to learn about heritage.

They also want to introduce a Master Craftsman level of qualification to identify those who have practical skills and experience and distinguish them from those who have recently left college. The idea is to create a career path for those who prefer not to move into management, which is the only route for further progression currently.

The NHTG is currently working with English Heritage to create a national contractors register to list those who have successfully completed conservation training and carry CSCS cards with conservation endorsement.

Many companies find it difficult to recruit youngsters and part of the NHTG\'s aim is to raise awareness of the sector in schools. They are seeking to establish some bursaries in this sector funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to encourage youngsters to enter this sector.

Simon says the aim of the NHTG is to be a conduit through which all the different interests of industry and training can be brought together to care for the built heritage of the country in a sustainable way.