CHIC CHAT

Changes to the team

This month marks the second half of 2022, the first half having been a very busy period for CHIC. Some of the highlights include:

Launching our Conveyancing Search Market Framework and Optimised Retrofit programme in Wales
Starting 70 new contracts with our members.
Hosting another successful annual conference and our first round table event
Our sponsored charity walk

A key area of focus has been expanding our procurement team in June, to reflect continued growth. We are pleased to have welcomed Tariq Malik to the team, whose role as Procurement Coordinator is to support the delivery of compliant procurement.

In July, we are also joined by Rebecca Devaney as our new Head of Procurement, to maintain a forward plan of CHIC’s new and replacement procurement requirements for frameworks and DPS solutions to meet our member’s requirements.

We have also just recruited two further colleagues to the procurement team to support our work in Wales - more details to follow next month.

Recruiting Now:

We are still in the recruitment phase for other roles:

SOCIAL VALUE MANAGER

Part of CHIC’s business strategy is to make our Social Value contributions clearer, now through a brand new charity – CHIP (Communities and Housing Investment in People).

CHIP will work proactively with contractors and suppliers to ensure that all contractual SV obligations are achieved. It will commission and monitor Local Employment Groups to create new employment opportunities and will manage a rolling programme of small Community Chests.

The new role for a Social Value Manager will take full responsibility for all of the day to day operations of CHIP, reporting to CHIC’s CEO and a Board of Trustees.

HEAD OF MEMBER SERVICES

This is a key role working as part of our Member Services Team, with a regional focus. The role involves constant liaison with members to ensure that existing contracts and support are delivering as expected, as well as to create and deliver growth in CHIC’s member services delivery.

If you are interested, please contact Allison Price aprice@chicltd.co.uk

Homes UK

Delivering Net Zero in housing is one of the biggest challenges that the sector has ever faced. And it won’t happen without a level of collaboration that recognises the scale of the task.

This year CHIC is doing something a little different at HOMES UK held at London’s Excel from 23 to 24 November. CHIC will be hosting a 'CHIC Community' Pavilion within the Unlock Net Zero Live area. As a community we can collectively demonstrate how we can provide procurement and contract support solutions to deliver savings, efficiencies and added social value to the affordable housing sector.

We hope to engage delegates on a more personal level, with a café and free coffee to promote further networking opportunities. CHIC’s space will be separated by a different carpet colour from surrounding stands to find us easily.

The area will present a fantastic opportunity for 16 of our supply chain partners, to be part of our community and have their own area within the pavilion to engage with delegates and promote their services and products.

If you’d like an exhibition space inside the CHIC Community area, please contact Curtis at ccoulson@chicltd.co.uk for more information.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL PACKAGES

Please note that spaces will be on a first come first served basis and only available to partner organisations. Priority will be given to supply partners who have strong decarbonisation initiatives or values.

CHIC Conference

In June, CHIC hosted a wide range of great speakers discussing the latest developments and challenges from the social housing and construction sectors at our annual conference.

A big thank you to all who attended. A special mention to our sponsors Niyaa People, Global HSE Solutions, Aico, Pennington Choices, Nationwide Windows and Doors and Harmony Fire and to all of our many other exhibitors for helping us to host a successful event. See you all again next year! (24^th May in Telford)

We would also like to give a special mention to Mark Easton for hosting yet again, prompting interesting debates and giving his unique perspective on current sector wide issues.

“Informative, Relevant, Relaxed”

Ian Wall, Cubic FM

“Informative and interactive workshop sessions, good range of topics”

Martin Gladwin, Rapleys LLP

Workshops and Speakers

Our conference hosted an interesting range of workshops. Content that was delivered by our speakers at all sessions can be downloaded below. A promotional video will be available on our social media platforms soon, so be on the lookout.

The Supply Chain Strain	Tackling the pressures collaboratively Brexit, Covid and international disputes have individually and collectively disrupted normal operations within supply chains. Our speakers will be providing their perspectives on how we can come together to minimise the impact and maintain normal services.
What’s the smart way to build new homes?	How can we change the approach? The sector is positive when talking about modern methods of construction, but behind other sectors in building that way. Our panel will give their perspective on how MMC can become mainstream (or not!)
Big data and intelligent asset management	Using data effectively to make informed decisions As the saying goes, numbers don’t lie. Using reliable data to develop a considered and active asset management strategy will help future proof your assets and maximise the value of your homes.
Planning ahead for housing	What do the next few decades look like? The housing and construction sectors face some big challenges. We have cost inflation, material and labour shortages, the need to reduce carbon emissions, new legislation and a housing shortage. We need to invest in our current homes and build many new ones. An effective response to all of these challenges is imperative.
Building safer homes	Are today’s standards enough for tomorrow? Events over the last five years have rightly put higher expectations on the requirements to ensure safe homes throughout the design, construction, occupation and maintenance of the property. How have we responded to what might change?
Technological advancements	Separating gimmicks from innovation This session will consider why the housing sector is slow when it comes to the uptake of technology in the maintenance of properties. How can you be sure what you implement is the most effective solution?
Creating a sustainable future	Quality, quantity, or both? The housing sector has responded quickly and positively to the challenge to decarbonise our asset base. So how well are we doing, what have we learnt and what more do we need to do?

We think it was our best conference yet, but what did you think?

We would love to get your feedback about the day so we can make our next event even better. If you could take a few moments to fill out our short Feedback Form, it would be greatly appreciated.

Tell us what you think

SAVE THE DATE

Thinking about attending next year's conference? The 2023 Conference & Exhibition will be held on Wednesday 24 May at Telford International Centre. You can book your place now.

Perception Survey

Many thanks for those that took the time to respond to our annual CHIC stakeholder perception surveys. As a member owned not for profit consortium, we seek to provide great asset management and procurement services and products for our members. Your feedback helps us ensure what we do and how we do it meets or exceeds your expectations.

You have provided some great feedback, but more importantly areas in which we can improve to better our services and relationships with our members and supply chain partners. Below is a sample of some of that feedback responding to the question- ‘how you would describe CHIC?’

CHIC’s Board has now reviewed the feedback, which will influence future service development and business strategy. We will survey members and the supply chain again in the spring of 2023.

If you missed the survey or have anything else that you would like to tell us, please do so by emailing Curtis at ccoulson@chicltd.co.uk

Newbuild Round Table

CHIC Round Table Discussion

Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) can improve upon traditional methods of construction in some key ways:

• Quality – MMC production is repetitive and predicable

• Cost – not just the bottom line cost of development, but whole life costs

• Delivery – faster build meaning homes can be delivered quicker, with less disruption for neighbours

• Carbon Footprint – generating less carbon in the construction process

MMC is a key solution for the future but we need to start changing our thinking on how we approach development. We need to deliver better quality homes, which are energy efficient, to help tackle the fuel poverty crisis and save the environment.

CHIC’s new build MMC programme is growing, and we want to procure a new framework for our members which doesn’t just deliver a compliant route to market via traditional or modern methods of construction. We also want to cover retrofit and housing for sale options, that will be important in larger regeneration projects.

Uptake of MMC has been slow due to lack of knowledge and understanding. We want to change this by bringing together CHIC members development teams, MMC designers and manufacturers, contractors, consultants to share their thoughts and help shape our new framework.

Our aspiration is to establish a new Gold Standard development framework, to offer solutions for development and regeneration schemes of all types and sizes across the UK . But as well as a route to market for members, we intend to establish a ‘framework core group’ that shares learning, understanding and ideas and promotes standardisation and collaboration.

We are therefore hosting a market consultation round table discussion on the morning of Thursday 28th July at Sixways Stadium, Worcester and hope you can attend.

Please email Sarah at sdavey@chicltd.co.uk for more info.

CHIP Launch

CHIP LAUNCH – ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS AND LUNCH TO LAUNCH CHIP
Communities & Housing Investment in People (CHIP)

DATE: Tuesday 13th September 2022

LOCATION: Conference Aston, Birmingham, B4 7ET

TIME: 09.30 – 2.30

CHIC has established a new charity named Communities & Housing Investment in People (CHIP), having received recent approval from the Charity Commission. This is a huge milestone for CHIC’s social value programme in identifying and securing grant funding to further the objectives of ensuring that contractual training obligations are delivered, placing people who are disadvantaged into work and in supporting CHIC’s Members communities.

This charity will be launched at a round table discussion and networking lunch.

The round table will focus on what our stakeholders might want CHIP to deliver in the short, medium and long term. This will be followed by a lunch, at which CHIC’s chair will outline the consortiums expectations and introduce the new CHIP Chair and Trustees.

More details about this event will be available shortly so be on the lookout. Alternatively, you can email Curtis at ccoulson@chicltd.co.uk for more information, including attendance and sponsorship opportunities.

News From the Sector

A survey has been launched by The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee directly towards the people who live in social housing. This survey is to recognise the condition and quality of homes in social housing.

The head of policy and external affairs at the Chartered Institute of Housing, Rachael Williamson, voices the £1bn increase in the Household Support Fund from next month is not a solution to support low-income citizens as the cost of living crisis and essentials continue to rise.

As the reformation of innovation and sustainability in procurement is expected in 2023, social landlords are encouraged to be aware of the hurdles within traditional procurement routes before establishing routes to procure an emerging green technology.

The government published changes in the Social Housing White Paper with the aim to have a renewed focus on improving the quality of housing.

Recruitment

Are you seeking a new opportunity?

CHIC has three exciting new job opportunities to join our growing procurement team:

Procurement Manager (Wales)
Procurement Officer (Wales)
Procurement Officer (Midlands)

We are also looking for a Social Value Manager to manage our new charity, delivering CHIC’s social value programme, employment and training.

And due to the expansion of our programme, we are now recruiting a new Head of Member Services to our growing team – ideally Midlands based.

For more information, please drop Allison Price an email at aprice@chicltd.co.uk to find out more.

Unlock Net Zero

CHIC delivers a wide range of PCR 2015 compliant procurement solutions, through frameworks, contracts and a dynamic purchasing system. But we also provide on-going support to members and the supply chain, to ensure that all work together to drive efficiencies from aggregation of demand and through effective collaboration.

Never has it been more important to get the housing sector to work together through effective collaboration. The ‘net zero’ target for 2050 might still seem quite distant, but is this now within the normal 30-year investment planning cycle for a social housing landlord.

What we know is that more investment is needed and each landlord needs to do to their homes will only emerge over the next few years, as their own investment plus net zero asset management strategies are developed and refined. But we already know they will all include:

Improvements to the insulation of their homes (FABRIC FIRST)
Investment in new heating systems and renewable technologies (M&E work)
Significant regeneration – for those homes that are unpopular and that cannot be cost effectively improved.

CHIC sees its role as a Founding Partner of UNZ remaining an important focus for members. Although the sector has come a long way, there is still a long way to go. Decarbonisation was not on the agenda until a couple of years ago, and now it is the ‘buzz word’ for many. Suddenly there seem to be lots of experts in the field but who do not necessarily have the experiences to demonstrate such claims.

By collaborating with like-minded organisations across the housing and construction sectors, we can together unlock what ‘Net Zero’ really means. In turn, CHIC can engage its wide cohort of members and contractor, consultant, supplier and manufacturer partners in the efficient delivery of a whole new chapter of investment in members’ homes, making warmth more affordable for residents and reducing carbon.

We look forward to our continued support to this important agenda and using the wealth of knowledge in the CHIC team, and our position amongst between sector experts to publish useful content for all to benefit.

USEFUL LINKS

PARTNER DIRECTORY: https://www.unlocknetzero.co.uk/partner-directory/chic-ltd

Our partner directory is where all our decarbonisation related content will be posted onto the hub. Keep an eye out for further reports, case studies and updates from CHIC.

EVENTS: https://www.unlocknetzero.co.uk/events

Here you can find some useful links to upcoming webinars, seminars and conferences where you can learn about the latest developments, including our vey own annual CHIC Conference & Exhibition

If you would like to partner with CHIC in a joint press release on decarbonisation, please send an email to ccoulson@chicltd.co.uk

Help us help the sector

The Fire Safety Compliance Forum (FSCF) is a group of Social Landlords, Consultants, Lawyers, Contractors, Specialists and Fire Safety experts all focused on trying to improve the way in which fire safety works are done. This survey is part of a project which aims to identify the right ways to engage and deliver the best experience for residents who are having fire safety works carried out in their homes, blocks or estates. CHIC is a part of the working group and would appreciate it if you could take the time to fill this short survey.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Thank you.