SummitSkills, the Standard Setting Organisation for building services engineering (BSE), has been appointed to issue completion certificates for apprentices in the facilities management, cleaning and property industries.

The new role complements SummitSkills' decade-long work in managing apprentice certification for the BSE sector. In the last four years alone, the organisation has issued over 23,000 certificates to young people completing their apprenticeship programmes.

With the inclusion of the facilities management and associated industries, an additional 3,000 certificates per year now fall within SummitSkills' remit. They will also be involved in working with partners to ensure apprenticeship frameworks for the sector are kept up to date.

The Federation for Industry Sector Skills & Standards (FISSS) awarded the contract for the role. Mark Froud, FISSS' managing director, said: "SummitSkills has successfully delivered apprenticeship certification for a number of years. Based on this strong track record, it's clear they will seamlessly extend their expertise to what are closely related industries."

"This is an exciting new development that allows us to expand our certification capabilities and underlines the important role SummitSkills carries out for employers,” said Nigel Hollett, SummitSkills' general manager. "There's already much commonality between BSE and facilities management and so we look forward to providing a quality services to employers and apprentices in both sectors."