Parliament has approved the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board’s 2026 Industrial Training Levy Order, maintaining levy rates at 0.33% of off-site payroll and 1.2% of on-site payroll, expected to raise £137.9m for 2026–28 and support an estimated additional 40,000 workers. Employers with off-site wage bills under £1m and on-site wage bills under £275,000 remain exempt but still eligible for ECITB training grants, preserving support for SMEs. The levy will be collected in 2027–29, with a separate decision on a proposed ECITB–CITB merger due later this year.

Ofwat has imposed a £30.5M redress package on South East Water and ordered the appointment of an Independent Monitor after concluding three separate enforcement investigations into the company. The intervention follows sustained performance concerns around public water supply resilience and service levels, with the monitor to scrutinise delivery of improvement plans, leakage control and outage management. Contractors and consultants working on South East Water’s network upgrades should expect tighter regulatory oversight, more prescriptive performance reporting and closer scrutiny of asset condition and hydraulic capacity improvements.

Western Australia’s new Minister for Mines, Petroleum and Exploration, Daniel Pastorelli, is being pressed by the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) to fast‑track key legislative and regulatory reforms following his appointment in a cabinet reshuffle replacing David Michael. AMEC is pushing for immediate clarity and streamlining around approvals and compliance settings that directly affect exploration timelines and project financing risk in WA’s hard‑rock sector. For geotechnical and mining engineers, any shift in these frameworks will influence permitting schedules, drilling campaigns and long‑lead design commitments across new and brownfield sites.