Teamnet Members' Update Salary Watch NEWS from AROUND THE

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TEAMnet members' update Forthcoming Thursday 9 April 2015 events: CDM 2015 - Are you Salary Watch ready for the changes? Updated monthly, our salary data benchmarking enables you to compare salary information in specific geographical areas or across the whole of the UK.

The latest salary watch data is now available on the TEAMnet website .

NEWS FROM AROUND THE SECTOR

Code for Sustainable Homes scrapped Value for Money – The Code for Sustainable Homes has been officially third time lucky? scrapped by the government as part of its ‘bonfire of red tape’ in the housebuilding sector.

The changes are the culmination of the Housing Standards Review which aims to reduce the cost and complexity of building homes in England and stop the ‘pick and mix’ approach to housing standards by different local authorities in England. The code allowed councils to adopt their own sustainability levels as a planning requirement for new

residential development, with code level 3, 4, 5 or 6 as Online and in touch - potential planning conditions. How new technologies are Elements of the code will now be incorporated into building offering new regulations, which wil l be retitled as “the new national opportunities for technical standards” and set at the equivalent of a code level engagement online 4. BRE has said it will continue to certify schemes under the code and the body launched a new national quality mark for consumers to help them understand the code at the Ecobuild conference earlier this year.

You can read the statement to Parliament (planning update) from DCLG here:

Or READ MORE here:

Leasehold Circle appoints new repairs contractor Management Summit 2015 The problems Circle have experienced with their repairs service have been well reported over the last few months. Circle have now appointed Mitie, who are perhaps better known for general FM and planned works contracts, as their reactive repairs contractor for one of Circle’s subsidiary associations. Regular newsletter readers will remember that Mitie announced a profit warning recently citing 'market pressures' in social housing as an underlying reason. Follow us: The new contract covers responsive repairs and main tenance, including out of hours repairs and voids repairs

for Old Ford Housing Association which has a stock of 6,500 homes in East London.

As Mitie issues profit warning... landlords – is your repairs service giving you VFM? As Mitie’s profits continue to suffer as a result of the ongoing spending cuts, it’s more essential than ever that every social landlord gets as much value out of its repairs service as possible.

Our workshop will explain exactly how you should do this. It will cover:

• HQN’s detailed analysis from the Global accounts – in plain language. See how your service co mpares to others • Procurement – getting off to the right start • New and different approaches to service delivery • How others have achieved cost savings • Value for money – a contractor’s perspective

If you have responsibility for procurement, service delivery o r budgets then this workshop is essential for you.

Swedish off -site construction system TEAMnet reported a few weeks ago that the UK housing stock is among the poorest insulated in Europe and how this was leading to a rise in fuel poverty and greater hospitalisation of vulnerable tenants due to respiratory and similar illnesses.

Since then, we have spotted an off -site new build solution which claims all -in monthly energy costs of £75. The terrace of carbon zero properties for rent have been developed by Arch Housing, a company owned by Northumberland County Council.

This should be seen agai nst a background of the recent announcement of the scrapping of the Code for Sustainable Homes. The houses have been built to the newly launched BRE Home Quality Mark.

For more on the Home Quality Mark:

For a useful summary of the Housing Standards Review:

Muir Group insources repairs service We have commented before on the general move towards in- sourcing of maintenance services since the change of VAT to 20%. This change is a major catalyst towards in- sourcing, often giving in-house contractors a major competitive edge over external contracto rs. An interesting way of developing a DLO or in -house contractor quickly is to buy an existing maintenance company. This is what Muir Group has done this week with its announcement of the purchase of a local repairs company OPBMS in Warrington, Cheshire.