These race-to-the-bottom, risk-dumping procurements demonstrate the exact same approach to the market that caused the existing problems that beset our sector. They help perpetuate the “race to the bottom” Dame Judith Hackett’s report eviscerated. Surely adopting the same approach to procurement is asking the same people to do the same job for the lowest price? Is this likely to produce a different result?
Adopting the same procurement practices and expecting different outcomes is likely to risk producing procurement outcomes that fail to deliver the greener, safer and high-quality homes these funding streams are intended to provide.
The mere fact that these works are strategically important, high-profile and designed to remedy existing problems, by itself is unlikely to guard against similar outcomes. The government needs to question whether such funding deadlines are driving the right behaviours and approach by the grant recipients.
Procurement must be conducted differently, and there are already potential solutions. These include the use of responsibly procured framework agreements and packaging works into smaller projects (e.g. sized by reference to the funding timescale and what can reasonably be delivered after a responsibly timed and resourced procurement process has been run).
In terms of net zero works, housing providers should be looking at collaborative procurement with other providers to spread the risk and cost of a more complex process for innovative products and systems.
The government has a responsibility to consider the behaviours that funding conditions and timetables drive. In terms of net zero and building safety procurement, such deadlines are creating panic-based purchasing decisions that are unlikely to enable housing providers to build back greener, better or faster.
On the other hand, housing providers need to enter into dialogue with BEIS and DHLUC and be honest about the pressures the funding deadlines create. All parties then need to agree how central government funding can be deployed so that it avoids short-term fixes and instead encourages recipients to focus on long-term, best-value solutions.
It is incumbent on all of us to learn from the mistakes of the past and ensure that the cycle of procuring quickly and cheaply is broken. We need to ensure that the right contractors are appointed to deliver these critical works at the right price.
Rebecca Rees, partner, Trowers and Hamlins
