It’s been over 18 months since Professor David Mosey’s Constructing the Gold Standard report was published, but how have its recommendations been taken on board in the social housing sector? Lee Parkinson, chief executive of Efficiency North, investigates
With the Mosey Report and 2020’s Construction Playbook, the wider construction industry has probably been under closer scrutiny in the last three years than it has in the last 30 and – as an industry that has its fair share of troubles with collaboration – it’s not a stretch to say that this level of introspection was long overdue.
While Constructing the Gold Standard’s primary focus was on how central government procurement could be improved to facilitate the much-vaunted levelling up agenda, its suggestions around best practice should be considered across all sectors, including social housing.
As a nation, we have long had an issue with building enough houses – it’s just taken it getting to this current crisis stage for it to be front and centre of the political agenda. Depending on which metric you go by, it would take the UK somewhere around half a century at the current rate of building to clear our housing backlog in comparison to other European countries. When you factor in the current economic climate and the very real financial situation that is putting people under pressure, there is an acute need for more social houses to be built and built quickly.
Getting to the stage where this can be put into action requires a collaborative approach, and adhering to the principles of the Mosey Report is a good starting point.
A multifaceted approach is needed
One of the main reasons why the social housing sector can’t just blindly apply Constructing the Gold Standard is the number of variables when it comes to different local agendas. Central government procurement typically has one core client, while social housing procurement will usually have a number of different bodies involved, each bound by their own local challenges and issues.
When we speak with some of our peers in the social housing sector, we are hearing similar noises from across the country around how we can all take on board the most relevant parts of the Mosey Report and embed them into frameworks as we collectively move forward.
The key for our sector to get the most out of the report is to take more of an open-minded approach to how the spirit of the recommendations can be factored in as best practice, rather than looking at how we can follow it wholesale. By thinking about it in this way, we have found in practice that changes we have made to our Efficiency North frameworks have naturally ended up aligning fairly closely with the overall recommendations.
Early contractor involvement and collaborative arrangements are a great example of this being put into practice. Fostering strong relationships with the supply chain early on in the procurement process has always been the most productive approach – particularly when looking at embedding true social value into a project.
Thankfully, the recommendations of the Mosey Report around the supply chain’s involvement in the ongoing management of frameworks have created somewhat of a tidemark against which we could look at our own offering at Efficiency North and embed it even more for our next generation of framework agreements.
Understanding the challenge of carbon reduction across the industry
One of the biggest focus points for both the Mosey Report and the Construction Playbook was the reduction of carbon across the industry. You don’t need to be a sustainability expert to know that the construction industry is one of the worst offenders when it comes to carbon emissions, and the vast majority of firms of all shapes and sizes have some sort of commitment to doing their part in remedying this.
Frameworks have a real responsibility in this space to hold those who tender for them to account on their carbon reduction strategies, but it’s also about ensuring that a focus on the “E” of ESG isn’t to the detriment of the “S” and the “G”. A robust approach to including aspects such as employability and employment as part of social value delivery is equally as important to building lasting communities, but this is something that can slip by the wayside if we as an industry aren’t careful.
There is a level of self-awareness required here in that as framework providers – particularly those working in the social housing sector – it is incumbent on us to both understand the ESG requirements of our supply chain partners, and how they can help our members get the best results possible when it comes to building homes and communities.
By doing this, framework providers can act as catalysts for furthering environmental, social and governance matters not only across the supply chain, but in the end results as well.
Assessing the impact of the Mosey Report
The year and a half that has passed since the Mosey Report has been long enough to start to get a feel for how impactful it will be in the long run. The report states that there are more than 2,000 public sector construction frameworks currently active, and those providing them offer a vastly broad level of service.
Those whose offering has real strength and depth will most likely have already been adhering to many of the principles of the report before it was even released – not least because the Construction Playbook hinted at the way the wind was blowing a year previously – but those that offer more of a “light touch” service will already be finding it a struggle to adhere to Constructing the Gold Standard’s 24 recommendations.
Enhanced collaboration, driving activities around social value into the areas of carbon reduction and compliance, and having a holistic approach to contractors and other providers on the agreement are core principles upon which to build a framework that is fit for purpose, but they need to be built in from the start and not bolted on as an afterthought.
As some of these recommendations have a long lead time, 18 months in isn’t a time to be making sweeping judgements either way, but from an organisational perspective the question has to be asked – if you aren’t looking to implement changes by now, why not?
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