What Does a Presumption in Favour of Offsite Actually Mean?

The government announced a ‘presumption in favour of offsite’, in November 2017. The departments of defence, education, health and social care, justice and transport committed to favour tenders with an offsite construction component. How has this worked out in practice?

The commitment was intended to begin in earnest at the start of 2019. Since then, the total number of offsite projects commissioned by three of those departments (health, transport and defence) in the first eight months was zero.

The Ministry of Justice announced just one. More encouragingly, education was awarded 22 contracts with an offsite element via dedicated frameworks. The DfE also announced a £3bn offsite framework in June 2019. But outside of education (where offsite already had a track record of successful project delivery), the presumption is not yet being translated into practice.

Given that offsite and MMC bring much needed improvements in costs, timing and quality it has to be asked why progress has been so slow. Education had the advantage of existing frameworks that contained an offsite element and maybe it made sense for other departments not to retrofit offsite into existing frameworks. But will things be better going forward?

What Will Change Procurement Behaviour?

Procurement behaviour has to change – but where will the impetus for that change come from? Unfortunately, the government announced in September that is has no plans to make MMC a requirement in publicly funded housing projects. This is a missed opportunity to not only address the housing crisis but to give the offsite industry the confidence to ramp up investment in equipment and training.

Maybe one problem is that procurement teams don’t have a clear picture of what an offsite solution could look like due to a lack of experience in offsite.

To simplify this in the area of public housing, Osborne has partnered with offsite specialist Innovaré to develop a system of Systemised Housing. This uses standardised designs and processes to revolutionise housebuilding: reducing costs, speeding up development and improving quality and environmental performance.

Systemised Housing is a practical answer that could help move offsite into the mainstream of publicly funded housing projects. To find out more, visit our resource centre.