Social Housing Construction Summit meets with the Government

Published by Max Salsbury for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Central Government

A Construction Summit has set-out a cross-Government ambition to achieve up to 20% savings in construction spend in this parliament, and how it can be applied to social housing.

Meeting yesterday with the Government, the Social Housing Construction Summit, jointly hosted by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), supported by Cabinet Office, brought together decision makers from the construction industry and social housing providers.

Construction represents some 7% of GDP or £110bn per annum of expenditure, some 40% of this being in the public sector, with central government being the industry’s biggest customer.

The Construction Summit event focused on a number of areas including:

• What new ideas are out there?
• How can we apply them to social housing?
• What’s working and what isn’t working to allow innovation in the way Government, landlords and industry operate now?
• What previous initiatives have worked and which haven’t – what can we learn?
• Are there lessons from private development?

Delivering the keynote address, the HCA’s Richard Hill said: “This is not about imposing external agendas, rather, across the sector and industry there is recognition that we can build more efficiently and that the rewards are large, not only for shared social policy goals through more affordable housing, but also for individual organisations which place themselves at the cutting edge.

“Housing delivery will in future need to match the efficiencies being found in other sectors. Smarter procurement – innovations in the construction process itself as well smarter engagement with landlords – are some of the ways of doing that.

"The HCA, in its capacity as enabler, want to help the sector achieve this and act as bridge with government, building on the lessons of Decent Homes procurement consortia in particular.” 

Paul Morrell, Chief Construction Advisor, Department for Business Innovation and Skills, said: “We face a housing challenge that cannot be met without raising our game. At its best the UK construction industry is world class, and we need to bring its best thinking to bear and unlock its full potential for innovation to increase output affordably.

“This calls for client leadership; a deeper understanding, backed by evidence, of what works in housing design - what delivers private wellbeing and public good; stronger budgeting, founded in an understanding of the best we can already do; eliminating waste from our dealings with each other; making the best possible use of developing technology; and above all, collaborating right through the process and through the supply chain, to find new and better ways of working, on and off site, during and beyond design and construction.”

Guest speaker, Chief Executive of the Housing Forum, Shelagh Grant added: “Balancing cost and space is an ongoing challenge for the sector. But this also opens doors to opportunities and offers scope that we need to exploit. This ranges from looking at the role of technology in the whole build process, finding the right partners and collaborating in ways not considered before, forming joint ventures with larger partners, and the early involvement all the key players which will help drive out costly challenges.

“All of these will help promote efficiency, and to achieve this, the sector needs greater commercial perspective, which strengthens the need for collaboration.”