Scottish Traditional Building Skills Audit Scoping ... - Historic Scotland

Only 51 % of the wish-list skills are covered if an individual completes both the TAPS
and Advanced Craft, although a further 10% of the wishlist skills are partially covered.
Key skills such as understanding lime, the application and curing of flat lime
plaster, applied decoration, horse-hair plaster and papier-maché, scagliola and
compo are not taught as part of any currently available qualification.
Four colleges currently teach plastering apprenticeship courses, three of which offer
advanced craft.
Roofing
The roofing TAPS covers 68% of the wish-list skills, while Advanced Craft covers
76%. However, skills such as understanding the use of slate in terms of its geology
is not covered even at Advanced Craft level. Aspects concerning pantiles and
rainwater goods are also not covered.
Areas that appear to be under-represented in current training provision are
predominantly traditional roof coverings including stone-slate roofs, traditional
terracotta pan-tiles, and rosemary tiles.
As previously outlined above, Roofing occupation qualifications only cover 47% of
the wish-list skills for metal roofing.
Stained & Leaded Glass
There are several qualifications relating to stained glass ranging from NQ to BSc
level. These are offered by five colleges, although their primary focus is the design
and production of new glass rather than the repair of existing or historic glass.
Some art and design courses also include stained glass work, although again it has
not been possible to assess the degree to which any historic work is examined or
repair techniques discussed and implemented.
Stonemasonry
While the TAPS covers just 13% of the wishlist of skills, if an individual continues
to Advanced Craft, this percentage rises to 41% . This still leaves a shortfall of 59%
of wishlist skills not being taught to stonemasonry apprentices.
Scottish Traditional Building Skills Audit Scoping Exercise
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