Written answers

Wednesday, 20 April 2016

Department of Environment, Community and Local Government

Social and Affordable Housing Data

Photo of Barry CowenBarry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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472. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the recent changes that have been made to the approvals process for capital funded social housing projects undertaken by local authorities. [7640/16]

Photo of Alan KellyAlan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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Social housing projects funded by my Department comply with the Government’s Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF), the strategic objectives of which are to ensure greater cost certainty, better value for money at all stages during project delivery and more efficient end-user delivery.

Working within the scope and objectives of the CWMF, and with a view to supporting the earliest possible delivery of targets under the Social Housing Strategy 2020, my Department has streamlined the nine approval stages of the CWMF to four stages for capital-funded social housing construction projects. This facilitates local authorities to forward design proposals and costings to my Department sequentially, as they are advanced through the authorities’ planning work. In addition, my Department also introduced a new procedure in January 2016 to facilitate a further streamlined mechanism of funding approvals on a pilot basis for social housing construction projects with a maximum all-in budget of less than €2m and up to 15 housing units.

Local authorities opting for this new process provide a more in-depth Capital Appraisal proposal than is ordinarily provided, to allow my Department issue an approved budget for the project. In line with the CWMF’s objective of ensuring greater cost certainty in publicly-funded construction projects, this approved budget will represent my Department’s full financial commitment to the project and it will be the local authority’s responsibility to exercise appropriate cost control and deliver the project within the approved budget.

This new arrangement is optional and local authorities can submit project costings over the course of planning for a project and avail of the four-stage process if they so wish, which may be more appropriate for complex projects.

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