Building a team
In recent years opportunities have increased for new organisations to enter the development sector.
This includes Local Authorities, where there has been a resurgence of council house building, and members of the G320 who have recognised the desperate need for new homes in their local area and have invested in developing housing with strong support from their Local Authority partners and the GLA.
Creating and building a new team to deliver a programme is not easy and can take a variety of forms. Using Beacon Partnership’s depth of experience and extensive knowledge, we have provided clients with a range of options to equip them with the knowledge and resources to take the route into building new homes.
Please see the ‘Interim Consultancy Service’ for examples of Beacon Partnership’s recent consultancy placements and how we have helped to support various development teams. We can offer support for a full range of development functions at both a strategic and operational level.
Programme Management
The management of financial, programme, procurement and asset data for development programmes can be highly complex and very difficult.
Our team’s unique specialism in the management of development schemes for both Local Authorities and Housing Associations, combined with their knowledge and understanding of data management and business intelligence means we can offer realistic solutions to help tackle these problems. We can advise on and assist with:
- IT and procedural solutions to fit your budget
- Best practice approaches to data management
- Solutions to minimise task duplication and data entry errors and ensure highly efficient, accurate business intelligence practices
Our approach focuses on:
- Helping you to establish a single source of truth for all information about your development projects
- Helping you to embed ownership of, and accountability for, data into your development team
- Helping you to establish clear, efficient and accurate business intelligence and reporting
Services Provided: Business Intelligence, IT Solutions
Procurement
We can provide procurement advice and support, from initial options for procurement routes to the development of tender packs, utilising the breadth of our experience and extensive knowledge of the sector.
We can also assist with the preparation of tender documents, for example, template tender packs for your organisation or documents for a specific tender process. As part of this process we work with both internal teams and external advisors.
Project Management
The partners and staff at Beacon have provided a range of project management services across the development disciplines for a range of Housing Associations and Local Authorities in London and the South East.
With this extensive experience, Beacon are able to offer project management services across the whole lifecycle of development projects.
Previous experience has included:
- Land assembly
- Decontamination
- Managing the design process
- Procurement and tender, resulting in the successful appointment of development partners.
- Preparing specifications
- Entering into contract
- Contract Management
- Defects Management
Strategies, Policies & Procedures
A clear strategy that outlines your aims and objectives is key to running a successful development programme. Policies and procedures underpin this strategy, giving direction and focus and enabling you to achieve your aims.
We can assist with a range of services to help develop and strengthen your policies and procedures, from reviewing and updating existing documents to writing complete procedure manuals from scratch.
To help embed these processes and promote more efficient ways of working, we can work with you to integrate your policies and procedures into your workflows using IT solutions such as Office365 and your existing development appraisal and project management software (see also Data Management and Business Intelligence).
Services Provided: Strategic Development Support, Business Intelligence and Policy Design
Benchmarking Construction for London
The social housing sector is experiencing large fluctuations in construction costs. To help understand and monitor this Beacon Partnership and Calfordseaden have set up a benchmarking subscription service for Local Authorities and Registered Providers.
This anonymously collects and analyses members’ new-build tenders received each quarter and provides a report on works cost to the members.
Why use it?
Members get a quarterly report and a members’ meeting which will detail the construction cost experienced over the last 3 months across the capital. The data helps members to:
- Understand how their construction cost compares to other local providers
- Understand the average work cost per m2 for various building types
- Estimate construction costs on pipeline schemes
- See trends in construction costs over time as the subscription progresses
For further information or to sign up, please contact Steve Beard. You can give us a call on 020 3066 1061 or send an email to Steve.Beard@beaconpartnership.com
GLA Audit
Due to the importance of GLA funding to many development projects understanding and complying with GLA funding conditions is now more important than ever.
Although GLA Project Submissions & Grant claims have been simplified through the Open Project System, GLA funding compliance is only slightly less complex than it used to be, for example, there are many items in the Affordable Housing Capital Funding Guide and funding contracts that must be understood and adhered to. Non-compliance with these items could lead to the reclaim of grant by the GLA.
We have specialist consultants with GLA/HCA backgrounds to provide a service for Local Authorities that access GLA funding. Our confidential service enables you to work with the GLA in a way that will ensure they have confidence in your organisation to comply with their funding obligations and keep them up to date with issues as they arise.
Delivery for Small Registered Providers
Beacon Partnership can provide a tailored end to end delivery service to meet the specific needs of small Registered Providers. This ranges from:
- Preparing development strategies
- Board training
- Viability modelling and business planning
- Site finding and assessment of feasibility
- Project management
- Grant finding and support with registration as an investment partner
We have a network of experienced Associates and Partners that can provide a range of services to meet the specific needs of your organisation.