Moving from such a low base in home building to achieve ambitious targets in a relatively short time frame will create challenges in every aspect of how the construction industry operates.
The government must engage with all the key sectors of the construction industry that will have a role in delivering their planned large-scale home building programme and develop a capacity boosting plan. Also, this plan’s success will rely on its alignment with a training and skills capacity boosting initiative
Any proposed capacity boosting plan should include two key aspects:
- Delivery capacity building – How to structure the overall design and building of homes, neighbourhoods and towns.
- Organisation capacity building – How to structure the development corporations and other entities charged with developing homes, neighbourhoods and towns.
Delivery Capacity Building
How Development Corporations should be set up
To facilitate the large-scale home building programme, local development corporations will need to be created from new, as happened with the creation of the post-war New Towns. The effort and time to build such organisations simultaneously should not be underestimated, and a plan to adopt a ‘lean model’ corporate template set-up should be established.
In simple terms, a ‘lean model’ would mean that development corporations would outsource a sizeable amount of their workload to private sector specialist consultancies, allowing them to focus on their core mission.
Engaging consultancies could leverage their existing skills base and know-how, and share responsibility for capacity building to the private sector, spreading risks associated with development.. This approach would enable more efficient and accelerated project completions.
How Master Planned Developments should be built out
To build at scale, larger master plan developments will be needed. Whether these will be development corporations or other entities such as housing associations, councils or private developers, an ‘enabler’ approach involving sub-developers for various asset types should be used.
An ‘enabler’ approach would involve the master developer selling on parts of an overall master plan development to sub-developers while still maintaining a level of control.
This will allow for the sharing of the delivery burden and development risks allowing the overall delivery to be expedited while still maintaining overall master developer control.
The key to maintaining overall control of what is designed and built is for the master developer to have a comprehensive design guide for all parties involved to adhere to. A comprehensive design guide provides criteria specific for private sector consultants, construction contractors and sub-developers to work to while still allowing for innovation and a broader range of products and ideas from these other partners.
Some of the master plan developments will be new towns by definition and will be developed in accordance with the planned ‘New Towns Code’.
How Statutory Authorities Involvement should be streamlined
Local authority involvement via planning and building control departments is a critical component of delivering a mass home building programme so it is essential that there is an increase in funding and staffing levels. This was acknowledged in the last budget with a GBP £500m boost in funding exactly for this purpose.
In addition, there should be a plan to significantly increase the volume of developments that can be processed by consolidating local authority workloads. This can be achieved if the current reform of the planning regulations simplifies planning by zoning or other similar proposals.
This entails a designated area being provided with a set of development criteria such as land usage, type, height, set back dimensions, etc. If developments are designed to meet these there should be no need for the local planning authority to assess each development individually.
Why its essential to incorporate Modern Methods of Construction (MMC)
Embracing all of the current Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) on a substantial scale will also enhance delivery capacity by increasing build speed, reducing costs and reducing the need for skilled labour on site. The offsite factory mass production of building components or partially assembled units has mostly worked in the past where a large volume of residential, educational, medical or other assets have been needed.
MMC has faced some difficulties in recent years, partly due to a lack of a steady product supply line, with innovation and choice not at the level of countries where this is more prevalent. The large-scale build program will resolve the supply issue, but the government’s plan should be to reinvigorate the sector with some expertise from countries where MMC is better developed such as Germany. This could be done by creating a centre of excellence or sponsoring partnership L&D programmes for UK companies to learn from foreign companies.
The plan should include ‘modular kit homes’ for self-builds by individuals, small builders or developers. While self-builds would not contribute to public housing, the UK has much potential to develop this sector, offering direct competition to the professional home building developer sector as well as adding overall housing supply.
Organisational Capacity Building
Making Development Corporations centers of delivery excellence and best practice
As noted earlier,’ establishing a wave of new development corporations will be a feat in itself, and the know-how and skillsets required for this in the current market will be limited. In addition to the ‘lean model’ , to attract the best skilled individual people in a competitive market, these new corporations should prioritise becoming ’employers of choice.’
Being an ‘employer of choice’ by having a work environment, benefits and culture that attracts the best new joiners and retains existing employees should be complemented by a substantial training programme for graduates. This should be supported by educational and professional institutions, to cultivate a high ratio of trainees across various business roles. Opportunities for upskilling and training of staff in general should be part of this, and the development corporations should aim to set the benchmark in the industry.
How to effectively monitor and control a large-scale home building programme while its being delivered by many organisations
As part of building capacity, there needs to be central monitoring and control of this large-scale home building program across all delivery entities and all local authority areas to ensure there is a level of uniformity in monitoring metrics across the board in terms of value-for-money, delivery outcomes, good design, timelines, quality products, etc.
A development corporation or any other type of delivery organisation will monitor their development work and pass on collected data to a central overarching body such as a dedicated unit within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). This data is used to decide what is and is not working and can be continually assessed to enable strategy updating over the life of the programme.
To achieve this, when development corporations are established, a standardised set-up template encompassing all corporate aspects should be used to streamline the establishment of the many required development corporations and other delivery entities, ensuring synergy, avoiding disruptions, and expediting delivery. Additionally, a best practice residential development delivery template should be used, covering investment, procurement, design and construct stage gates, complete with a Project Management Office (PMO) setup for every delivery entity.