Mr. Dick Brady:

Regarding rapid-build housing, I am sure members know that when the Government made a decision back in October 2015 to move with rapid-build housing, it was decided that the first 150 or thereabouts would be using an ultra-fast procurement system and the balance of 350 would be using normal procurement. When I say "normal procurement", that has changed somewhat and the OGP is working on a framework in respect of it. In respect of the first 150, the city manager, in accordance with the planning Act, under section 179 said that having people in hotels and getting them out of hotels was an emergency and invoked emergency planning in order to move forward with the first 150 units.

It is my understanding that the second tranche of 350 will move in the normal planning arena.

In order to address the issue of families in hotels, the city manager declared that we had an emergency planning situation. When one marries an emergency planning situation with an ultra fast procurement system, one gets a condensed first half of the game, which made the timeframe extremely short.

In terms of the normal procurement process, there are approximately five different stages that we must go through. First, a proposal must be developed. That proposal must then be approved by the Department. When it comes back from the Department, we then prepare the Part 8 proposal. The Part 8 proposal then goes through council and as Deputies know, that can take some time. That is the planning side of things. When the Part 8 proposal comes back, we must draw up tender documentation, carry out a cost-benefit analysis and essentially price the job. All of that gets sent to the Department for approval and there can be an amount of to-ing and fro-ing in that process. When that is approved and the drawings are finalised, the job goes out to tender. When it comes back from tender, an analysis of the tenders must be carried out and a recommendation made. That recommendation then goes back to the Department, which approves it and gives us permission to go ahead. We then carry out due diligence on the winning tender and away we go.