Ms ?ine Stapleton:

The four-stage approval process is a pre-construction process. Included in it are stages that the local authorities or AHBs must undertake and the approval by the Department. It involves the design stage by the local authorities and AHBs and the planning and procurement stages. All of that is encompassed within the process. It was reviewed in 2021 with a view to making a number of changes that might be helpful for the sector. For example, to de-risk the sites coming forward, we have said that site investigation before an approach is made to the Department will be funded by us. That applies to the very preliminary stages when local authorities or AHBs identify challenges with the site. We have also encouraged them to work in parallel. As they are waiting to get through the Part 8 planning process, they can proceed in parallel to progress more advanced design briefs. Should they run into a difficulty with the progress of the project, we will cover the costs up to that point. We are encouraging a process whereby they do a number of these pre-construction initiatives in parallel.

We have also tried to bring standardisation to the design. The Department last year issued a design manual for quality housing, with a number of layouts and design standards. We are saying to the local authorities and AHBs that using those design standards and staying within the technical specifications the Department has set down will fast-track the approval process. For example, there is an option to skip stage 3 of the approval process if they are fully compliant with the design manual and within certain cost parameters. We have made a number of changes to make the departmental end of the approval process as streamlined as possible. Critically, we want to bring more standardisation and consistency to the design stage. It is sometimes the toing and froing on schemes that might be overspecified which leads to some of the difficulties and delays. We are conscious that we want to make this as easy as possible and support the sector as much as possible. At the moment, the Department is engaging in a series of regional workshops with the local authorities to walk through the design manual, technical specifications and unit cost ceilings so there is a good understanding of the parameters within which we are working. If we are compliant with that, it should ease the timelines for moving through the process.