The Third Annual Report from the Industry Safety Steering Group, chaired by Dame Judith Hackitt, was published on Monday 10th January. The Annual Report sets out what has been achieved across the built environment sector on its approach to building safety over the past year, and what still needs to be done.
The Annual Report highlights many areas of good practice and initiatives that the sector has adopted and progressed, ahead of legislation, as Dame Judith Hackitt has been imploring the sector to do. It makes it clear that there is still a way to go and the Annual Report, yet again, serves as a clarion call for landlords, contractors and all organisations and individuals across the built environment sector to take action now in order to improve safe and quality outcomes.
Trowers & Hamlins are delighted that its efforts in promoting forward collaborative working:
- through its work with the DLUHC Procurement Advisory Group in contributing to the Procurement Guidance Document;
- contributing to the Government's Construction Playbook and the Value Toolkit;
- contributing to the SEC guidance for social housing providers;
- and addressing the impact that price evaluation has on safe and quality outcomes in its White Paper on Price Evaluation has been recognised in the Annual Report.
The Annual Report notes:
The ISSG has previously highlighted the need to improve procurement practices so that safety principles are embedded from the start of a project. Trowers & Hamlins has worked with multiple organisations within the industry to push forward collaborative working and has produced a policy paper as part of a working group looking at addressing the price evaluation problems that the industry faces.
Case study
We were pleased to hear from Trowers & Hamlins, a legal firm that has led a working group looking at alternative pricing models and how they can be used to achieve sustainable outcomes in the housing sector. The findings of this have been set out in a “Pricing Models for the Social Housing Sector” paper published in December 2020. Following this the firm held a series of workshops to explore alternative pricing models, increase awareness about them and the impact on procurement processes.
Trowers &Hamlins has also been involved in other procurement initiatives such as the “The Value Toolkit”, which was published in April 2021 and offers clients a structured approach for value-based decision making across the investment lifecycle of a project, programme or portfolio. The firm has also been involved with South East Consortium (SEC) to develop a guidance document for procurement professionals in the social housing sector which will explain the business case and operational strategies needed to support better procurement.
We will keep on helping the built environment sector address the challenges currently faced by the building safety crisis and are very proud to support the work of the ISSG.
To read Trowers and Hamlins' report to the ISSG on price evaluation click here.
To read the Trowers & Hamlins/CABE briefing paper to the ISSG click here.
