ADD2114 Impact Assessment Report of the London Housing Strategy 2017

A new version of the London Housing Strategy (LHS) is currently being produced by members of the Housing Unit of the Housing & Land Directorate. It is envisaged that this will be published for public consultation at the end of July 2017 and adopted as a final statutory strategy by March 2018.

To support the development of the Strategy it needs to undergo impact assessments in order to meet a number of statutory requirements. These will include an Equalities Impact Assessment, a Health Impact Assessment, and a Community Safety Impact Assessment.

Members of the GLA’s Housing and Land Directorate will scope the impact assessment process (i.e. agree objectives and baseline data for the impact assessments) and they will be responsible for undertaking assessments for the policies for which they are responsible.

In order to fully consider the cumulative impacts of the various policies, within a single assessment a decision was made to procure external consultancy support to carry out an amalgamated impact assessment report.

After a full and transparent procurement process in line with the GLA’s procurement guidelines, Altair Consultancy and Advisory Services Ltd (Altair) have been selected to amalgamate the impact assessments into one report, create a draft impact assessment for public consultation alongside the Draft LHS and, if there are any significant changes to the strategy following consultation, including these in a revised report to be published with the final adopted LHS.

The key tasks for Altair will be to:

• Collate the impact assessments produced by GLA officers and check for consistency and robustness;

• Prepare a single report containing an Equalities Impact Assessment, a Health Impact Assessment, and a Community Safety Impact Assessment of the Draft London Housing Strategy and, where required, refer readers to other relevant documents (particularly the Strategic Environmental Assessment being undertaken for the London Plan);

• If required, following public consultation of the draft impact assessment report, review public responses to the consultation and revise the report prior to publication of the final LHS to take into account these responses and any changes made to the Draft Strategy.

In order to procure Altair to carry out this work, a competitive tender was carried out and three organisations were approached to provide quotes.

At the end of this exercise, two bids were obtained. Having evaluated the bids and interviewed both applicants Altair were awarded the contract, as their bid demonstrated a greater understanding of the work required and was the best value of the two bids.

It is estimated that the cost of the consultancy will be up to £24,000 broken down as follows:

• To produce a report and a draft impact assessment for public consultation alongside the draft LHS 2017 will be no more than £14,000.

• To produce a revised report following public consultation that will be published with the final adopted LHS will be no more than £10,000.

2.1 An amalgamated report of the impact assessments carried out by the policy leads for the draft 2017 LHS.

2.2 A draft impact assessment to accompany the Draft LHS during public consultation from August 2017 to October 2017.

2.3 A revised report following the public consultation to support the final version of the LHS when it is published in March 2018.

3.1 The impact assessments to be carried out include an Equalities Impact Assessment which will evaluate the likely potential impacts, both positive and negative, of the LHS on those with protected characteristics (age, disability, gender, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation).

3.2 The procurement of the supplier complied with GLA responsible procurement policy which includes a commitment to encouraging equality and diversity.

4.1 a) key risks and issues

There are no immediate risks related to the commissioning of Altair to carry out this work. Any risks are associated with delays to the production of the strategy and the impact assessment report, including as a result of amendments following the public consultation. However, these risks will not be increased by the commissioning of Altair.

4.2 b) links to Mayoral strategies and priorities

The impact assessments are a statutory requirement for the preparation of the LHS.

This decision requests approval to spend up to £24,000 to commission the Impact Assessment Report of the London Housing Strategy 2017. This expenditure will be funded from Management Support and Consultancy budget within Housing & Land department and will be expended in 2017/18 financial year.