Mr. Eddie Taaffe:

There are definitely time and cost savings to be made through design and build but primarily time savings. At the moment local authorities effectively do preliminary design via the Part 8 process. Once the Part 8 is approved by councillors, that is enough of a preliminary design and if that is tied together with the standard specification documents and the standard internal layouts prepared by the Department, it should be relatively straightforward and quick to begin a tendering process for design and build rather than having to go out with a separate procurement for an architect and another one for a builder. It can be wrapped up into one process to get on site quicker. The construction sector is well used to design and build because that is how a lot of private sector housing is done. It is design and build but we do not call it that. We need to use that more and accelerate delivery more. That will free up some council resources to do other schemes like vacant renewal and combating dereliction via the social housing construction programme in our towns and villages, which is a very worthwhile area. There will be a greater emphasis on that in the new Housing For All programme. Design and build will not work on every site, but we should definitely be utilising it more and there is a definite desire to see it used more by local authority design teams.