SHDF bidders: Delivering at risk

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Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund guidance released by the government allows you to start delivering your project at risk between the launch of the Wave 2.1 competition and confirmation of grant agreement.  Spending on eligible activity in this window can be claimed as match funding for successful bids once funding is granted, but spending is at risk as your bid may not be successful.

Our upcoming workshop will take you through balancing risk with outcome to identify the best route to delivering at risk.  In the meantime, here are three things to start thinking about:

1. Low- to no-cost tasks

It’s best to focus on low- to no-cost tasks as these carry the least risk if your bid for funding is not successful - consider which aspects of your project incur minimal costs that you can begin working on. 

Putting together documents such as your equality, diversity and inclusion assessments or privacy statements is an important low-cost task that you can begin at this stage.  Save high-cost tasks such as putting down deposits for long-lead items for after grant funding confirmation.

2. What are your project milestones?

Review your project plan and think about milestones that you’ll need to achieve.  Are there any tasks needed to reach these milestones that you can begin now? 

For example, to help when you’re putting together your project team, you can start working out what the reporting structures of that team should be.  You may also be able to start preparing the contracts needed for procurement.

3. Looking toward the future

Delivering at risk is all about using this period to prepare for the delivery stage. Think ahead to where there may be delays in the delivery of your retrofit project and ask whether there is anything you can do now to ease those pressures. 

Liaising with other affected departments in your organisation and determining everyone’s roles and responsibilities now will make internal communications more efficient later.

You can also focus on work that will have lasting value.  Even if funding is not granted, the groundwork you lay now can be useful for future retrofit projects you may undertake.  Engaging with residents about the importance of retrofit now will be crucial for any longer-term projects.

For full guidance on delivering at risk, sign up for Tuesday’s workshop or check out future dates via the links below:

• Sign up → Tuesday 24 January, 12pm
• Sign up → Monday 30 January, 1pm
• Sign up → Monday 20 February, 12pm

SHRA is hosting a whole series of post-bid workshops on a range of topics, which you can find here.