Guidance

Housebuilders supporting information for Delivery Partner Dynamic Purchasing System

Updated 19 December 2024

Applies to England

1. Introduction

This document has been issued in connection with the opening of the application process to join our Delivery Partner Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). The application process consists of completion of a Selection Questionnaire (SQ) available through our Pro Contract System. Full information on how to apply to the DPS is available within Pro Contract.

Homes England means Homes England (the name adopted by the Homes and Communities Agency).

About Homes England

We are the government’s housing accelerator. We have the appetite, influence, expertise and resources to drive positive market change. By releasing more land to developers who want to make a difference, we’re making possible the new homes England needs, helping to improve neighbourhoods and grow communities. We welcome partners who share our ambition to challenge traditional norms and build better homes faster. Join us in breaking new ground to make this happen.

1.1  Contract Background

The Delivery Partner DPS will be a key tool to enable Homes England’s development activity, it will allow us to engage with a wider section of the development market than has previously been possible because suppliers will be able to join the DPS as we bring sites forward for disposal. We expect that we will use the DPS to procure a developer for most of our residential led sites going forward.

We will use the DPS where we need to control the speed, quality or type of development through our Building Lease. We may choose not to use the DPS for smaller sites or those where procurement compliant processes are not required, for these sites we will dispose of them via freehold disposal processes.

We do not expect our commercial or commercially led sites will be disposed of via the Delivery Partner DPS.

Housebuilders and organisations who undertake Residential Development (suppliers) can apply to join the Delivery Partner DPS. Successful suppliers will become members of the DPS and will then be invited to tender to develop specific Homes England sites under the Homes England Building Lease or invited to tender to develop sites owned by other public sector bodies (OPSB) who may choose to procure a housing developer through the Delivery Partner DPS.

We intend to appoint suppliers who can undertake all stages of the residential development process, can work under our Building Lease and pay a land value for the sites they develop.

The Delivery Partner DPS will be used to procure housing led development on land owned by public sector bodies. Housing led development is development that is predominantly residential but may include subsidiary uses for example commercial, retail, educational or leisure.

Homes England’s Residential Development activity

Homes England’s Development Directorate is focussed on delivering developable sites into the market. We do this by acquiring, de-risking and disposing of land to developers and housebuilders who then build and market homes on that land. Housebuilders and developers pay a land value for our sites and build out under our Building Lease.

Our portfolio of landholdings is over 8,800 hectares with (currently) 600 active projects, making us the largest master developer in the country.

Homes England only becomes involved where ‘Market failure’ exists, Market failure means a site would or could not be developed by private sector housebuilders alone. This market failure can include coordination breakdown between multiple landowners on larger sites; high upfront costs and risks of undertaking enabling works or installing infrastructure; and viability challenges on complex or brownfield sites.

To resolve these market failures and create developable land that we can offer to the market, we acquire those sites, we invest in them by undertaking enabling works and creating planning certainly where necessary. Once a site is viable and deliverable, we will procure a Developer or Housebuilder through the Delivery Partner DPS, who will pay a land value and build out homes under Homes England’s Building Lease which mandates policy objectives such as design quality, use of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) and pace or speed of delivery.

1.2 The Delivery Partner DPS

The DPS will build on the work already done through the Homes England’s Delivery Partner Panel (DPP3). The main aim of both is to make the procurement of a supplier (housebuilder or residential developer) as quick and efficient as possible through processes that work for private sector Delivery Partner DPS members as well as for Homes England and other public sector bodies (OPSB) who will use the Delivery Partner DPS.

DPP3 reached the end of its contacted term on the 30 July 2021 and current members of DPP3 will need to apply for a place on the Delivery Partner DPS if they wish to continue to work with us and our Partners.

The Delivery Partner DPS will operate for up to 10 years and we expect that over that time it will be used to procure homes with a total Gross Development Value (GDV) of up to £20 billion. It is likely that many of the projects procured through the DPS will have long build out periods, for some large sites this could be up to 10 years.

1.3 How to apply to join the Delivery Partner DPS

We have evaluated applications from the initial application period (24 May to 25 June 2021). and successful suppliers will become members of the DPS. The DPS will operate from 6 September 2021 and we, and other public sector bodies, will then begin to offer sites for which Delivery Partner DPS suppliers will be invited to tender.

From 6 September 2021 the application process will reopen, and additional new suppliers will be able to apply to join the Delivery Partner DPS. The application process will remain open and new suppliers will be able to apply at any time during the life of the DPS, which we expect to be 10 years.

Applications will be evaluated by Homes England within 10 working days, unless further information needs to be sought from the applicant, in this case a decision will be provided within 15 working days.

Suppliers are requested not to make speculative applications but to join only when a site of interest to them is coming forward for disposal. Homes England Sites planned for disposal can be found on our Land Hub.

The selection questionnaire has been designed to identify capable and active house builders and developers with a track record of undertaking residential development and an active interest in working with Homes England and OPSB’s to deliver homes. It is important that Delivery Partner DPS suppliers actively bid for the opportunities offered.

We are keen to encourage smaller regional developers and Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME’s) and we have created the Small Sites Category to make it easier for smaller companies, who may not have a previous track record of working with us to apply.

What we expect from suppliers joining DPS

Suppliers appointed to Delivery Partner DPS will be expected to cover all areas of activity required to develop housing, including, but not limited to:

• the raising of development finance
• obtaining planning permission
• supply chain management

design and construction of houses, design and construction of buildings and infrastructure to support housing, sales and marketing of homes, aftercare and maintenance.

The full Scope of Works is available in this document at Section 4.0

1.4 DPS categories of membership

The DPS is divided into two main categories to cover sites of different sizes. There is a separate selection questionnaire for each size category.

Categories are:

• sites that will provide more than 70 homes – for suppliers who wish to deliver larger sites.
• sites that will provide up to and including 70 homes – suppliers who wish to deliver smaller sites.

We do not expect the DPS will be used commonly for sites of below around 20 homes.

Large and small sites categories

The application processes are similar but suppliers applying for the large sites category will need to demonstrate a track record of delivering sites of 70 plus homes and those applying for the small sites category will need to demonstrate a track record of delivering sites of 15 to 70 homes.

For the large sites category, we will fully check all the information provided at the point of application. For the smaller sites category, the information should be self-certified by the supplier at application. In the event the supplier is then shortlisted to deliver a specific site the information will all be fully checked at that point and if it is incorrect or out of date the supplier will lose the opportunity to deliver that specific site and may lose their place on the DPS until the information is updated or corrected.

Financial checks for the two categories will also differ in terms of level of turnover or nett assets required.

Geographic sub-categories

The Delivery Partner DPS will cover all areas in England but suppliers will be offered the opportunity to express interest in 9 regional subcategories to show which areas of the country they work in. Once the DPS is operational we will ensure suppliers are only invited to tender for sites within their geographic areas of operation. Suppliers can change their geographic preferences at any point as their business grows and develops.

Access the DPS region EB app

Development type sub-categories

We expect that a wide range of development opportunities will be offered to Delivery Partner DPS suppliers, we want to ensure DPS members are only offered opportunities that are of interest to them. We have established 4 categories of development types and suppliers are asked to self-certify to say which development types they are interested in undertaking. The development type categories are:

• general residential-led development
• sites including conversion, refurbishment and works to listed buildings
• sites to be delivered via a construction and direct contracting approach
• sites including Extra Care and other forms of supported living
• sites providing 100% Affordable Housing

We plan to add additional categories over time and all DPS members will be invited to express interest in any additional categories. Suppliers can change their development type preferences at any point as their business grows and develops.

1.5  Design Quality, Sustainability and use of Modern methods of Construction (MMC)

Delivering design quality

Homes England is committed to raising the quality of design on our residential sites.

To this end, we have adopted building for a healthy life (BHL) as a method for promoting and assessing design quality. It is a place-based, industry-accepted tool that is easy to understand and provides an effective way to engage with our partners. It supports the government’s national design guide, with 12 considerations that focus on sound, urban design principles in a format that is simple to use and that provides a metric against which schemes can be assessed.

We will require all schemes developed on our land to be BHL compliant and we will set the threshold score required within tender documentation at each call for competition. BHL encourages the use of Design Review and Suppliers should be aware that this will be required on our sites.

We expect BHL to be used as a prompt for discussion, throughout the design process, from inception/ site acquisition through to delivery on site, and beyond, rather than as a checklist that a scheme is ‘marked’ against when the design is complete. It allows the design team to ask the right questions at the right time in the design process; to formulate the layout design, from strategic considerations such as Integrated Neighbourhoods through to the more detailed elements (Streets for All), in order to create better, more distinctive places everywhere.

Accelerating delivery through Modern Methods of Construction (MMC)

Homes England is committed to working closely with a diverse range of development partners, who share our ambition to maximise the uptake of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC). Our Partners will be required to help us meet our objectives as set out in Homes England’s strategic plan to increase productivity in the housing market through use of MMC.

Delivery Partner DPS Members will be expected to focus on making significant use of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC). This may include meeting specific Government or Agency targets promulgated from time to time throughout the duration of the Delivery Partner DPS. Specific requirements for each site will be detailed in site specific tender documentation at each call for competition.

Where homes are being produced using MMC, our Building Lease requires all development partners to work with Homes England’s appointed Compliance Inspectors to assign the MMC system to one (or more) of the seven category definitions of MMC.

Specifically, the seven categories are based on the framework developed by a specialist sub-group of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s MMC cross-industry working group. For more detail and the full report see Modern Methods of Construction working group: developing a definition framework.

Sustainability

Homes England has a statutory objective of ‘contributing to the achievement of sustainability and good design in England’.

We recognise the commitments of an increasing number of housing developers and our delivery partners who are showing high levels of ambition toward achieving a net zero carbon future and building homes in a manner that protects or enhances the natural environment.  

The building of new homes and communities will be subject to compliance with building regulations and local planning authority requirements. If there are additional sustainability requirements, then these will be included in the call for competition for a specific site.

1.6 How a DPS member can tender for a specific site

Once a supplier is accepted as a member of the DPS they will be invited to tender for specific development sites through a call for competition process. We currently use Pro Contract to manage this process and Schedule 6 of the DPS Agreement (available in Pro Contract) details this, further information is provided below.

Opportunities to tender for Homes England sites or those brought forward by OPSB will be offered to DPS suppliers via Pro Contract.

The call for competition process

The call for competition is a 2-stage process.

All DPS Suppliers in the relevant categories will be invited to Stage 1 which will offer them the opportunity to express interest in bidding for the site. This will consist or a simple yes or no responses to specific questions to ensure the DPS member has fully understood the nature of the development opportunity. These questions will form a capability statement. At this stage DPS members will also be asked to confirm their Selection Questionnaire information provided when they applied to join the DPS is up to date and correct.

Tender documents will be issued to all interested suppliers but where there is a lot of interest in a specific site, we may ask for tender responses in 2 stages. The first stage consisting of an initial response to certain sections of the tender, these sections will be assessed to select the companies who will then complete the full tender.

We hope this initial stage will be useful because it will provide early feedback to suppliers on their proposals and will ensure that only a reasonable number are invited to tender. We would not generally expect more than 6 companies to be invited to complete a full tender.

We will fully check all Selection Questionnaire information at this stage and if any information is found to be incorrect or out of date the DPS member will lose the opportunity to tender. A project specific financial check will also be completed at this stage to ensure the DPS member is able to fund the specific development opportunity. Further information on this is provided in the DPS Agreement.

Draw down contracts for specific sites

All development works procured though the DPS will be subject to a separate project specific contract. We use the Homes England Building Lease to control development on our land. We also have a shorter simpler version of the Building Lease that we use on smaller and simpler sites or where we have less need to control delivery of policy requirements such as use of MMC, Quality standards or delivery at Pace.

The DPS is also used by a wide range of Other Public Sector Bodies (OPSB) to procure development and construction of homes. OPSB’s tend to make use a of a wider range of draw down contracts and may use other forms of draw down contracts as well as the Building Lease. All draw down contracts are listed as Template Contracts in Schedule 4 of the DPS Agreement.

Please note these are standard documents that, although tailored to meet the needs of a specific project are not amended and applicants to the DPS should review these prior to joining. The documents are provided within our Pro Contract system.

There may also be some opportunities for DPS members to bid for schemes that require them to work to different contractual arrangements, for example, many local authorities and Registered Providers have used the Delivery Partner Panel (DPP3) to procure a residential contractor, for this reason DB 2016 Design and Build Contract 2011 and the NEC3 suite of contracts are also included.

1.7 How Other Public Sector Bodies can use the Delivery Partner DPS

In addition to driving housing delivery on land our ownership, Homes England also plays a key role helping government departments and Other Public Sector bodies (OPSB) unlock their surplus land for housebuilding. We will make the DPS available to OPSB who wish to use it. We expect local authorities and registered providers will make extensive use of the DPS as it will provide them with a sound procurement route to appoint a housebuilder or developer to build homes on the land that they own.

In order to use the DPS the OPSB will sign up to an access agreement with Homes England, once this is done Homes England will share all necessary information with the OPSB to enable them to use the DPS independently. OPSB’s will use Pro Contract to manage call for competition processes to appoint a DPS member for a specific site.

The DPS Agreement will cover all partners in their use of the Delivery Partner DPS, but partners will be responsible for putting in place separate site-specific draw down contracts with any appointed DPS member.

Partners using the DPS will be responsible for all works they procure through the DPS; Homes England will have no liability for works procured by partners. We will not make use of the DPS compulsory for partners; it is made available purely if partners wish to use it.

We do not intend to place restrictions on the sizes of sites that a partner can procure through the DPS. During the operation of the Delivery Partner Panel (DPP3) we have seen Partners procure development sites of greatly varying size and we intend to enable partners to make their own decisions regarding when it is appropriate for them to use the DPS and when it is not.

2. Procurement process

Full information on how to apply to join the Delivery Partner DPS is available within Pro Contract and the entire application process will be managed via our Pro Contract system.

Selection Questionnaire (SQ)

Applicants who wish to join the Delivery Partner DPS will need to complete a Selection Questionnaire (SQ) to provide the following information:

Section 1:

• 1.1: Supplier Details
• 1.2: Bidding Model
• 1.3: Contact Details

Sections 2 to 7:

• 2: Grounds for Mandatory Exclusion
• 3: Grounds for Discretionary Exclusion
• 4: Economic and Financial Standing
• 5: Information relating to the group of economic operators
• 6: Technical and Professional Ability
• 7: Requirements under Modern Slavery Act 2015

Section 8:

• 8.1: Insurance
• 8.2 to 8.4: Not applicable
• 8.5: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)
• 8.6 Environmental Management
• 8.7: Health and Safety (H&S) Part 1 - General H&S
• 8.7: H&S Part 2 - Construction Design Management (CDM) Duties
• 8.8: Asbestos
• 8.9: The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (and the Data Protection Act 2018)

Section 9 to 10:

• 9.3: Technical Questions – Building Safety
• 10.1: Categories - Geographical Areas
• 10.2: Categories - Development Types

3. Technical and Professional Ability

Section 6 of the Selection Questionnaire requires you to provide evidence to demonstrate your Technical and Professional Ability to act as a residential developer.

Applicants to the large sites category are required to provide 3 examples of residential led development schemes that you have delivered which provide 70 or more homes each.

Applicants to the small sites category are required to provide 3 examples of residential led schemes that you have delivered each of which provide between 15 and 70 homes each.

Full information is provided in Section 6 of the application on Pro Contact.

4. Scope of Activities

This schedule provides the broad scope of the works and activities that we plan to procure through the Delivery Partner DPS.

The Delivery Partner DPS will be used to procure housing-led development. This will include all activities necessary to construct housing and associated infrastructure, marketing and sales and transfer of freehold to eventual owners, including, but not limited to:

• raising of development finance
• means to share development risk and reward
• planning promotion including masterplanning
• obtaining planning permission
• supply chain management
• design and / or construction of homes
• provision of all forms of affordable housing (in association with a Registered Provider, Local Authority or alternative provider)
• First Homes and other discounted market sales products
• design and construction of infrastructure to support housing
• sales and / or marketing and / or promotion of homes
• aftercare and maintenance
• management of completed units/developments
• soft market testing

Specifically:

• Development and disposal of sites for residential use
• Development and disposal of mixed-use, housing-led sites. Mixed-use elements to include community facilities, retail or commercial development, open space ancillary to and in support of housing
• Construction of housing and other associated buildings to include community facilities, retail or commercial development ancillary to and in support of housing
• Refurbishment/retrofit of existing houses, residential buildings, empty homes and associated buildings
• Refurbishment, restoration, conversion of heritage or other buildings for residential led use
• Demolition, site remediation and enabling works to prepare sites for residential or mixed-use development
• Construction of infrastructure to support residential and mixed-use development
• Development of Extra Care accommodation, Independent Living accommodation, other accommodation for vulnerable people and private rented housing
• Development of Student accommodation
• Off-site manufacture of homes, modular construction, system build
• Maintenance and site management
• Construction or development of buildings to provide social infrastructure to support residential or residential-led development
• Provision of custom build homes
• Provision of serviced self-build plots
• Provision of serviced development parcels within a larger development site

A separate specification will be issued under each Call for Competition setting out details of our requirements or the requirements of another public body who chooses to procure through the Delivery Partner DPS.

5. DPS agreement and administration

The Delivery Partner DPS will operate for a period of 10 years and will be administered by the DPS Manager, who is a member of Homes England’s Development Directorate.

All suppliers will be required to sign up to the Delivery Partner DPS Agreement. This is a standard document that governs the place of the supplier on the DPS, it cannot be amended, and the supplier will be required to sign this electronically to submit their application.

The DPS is provided in full within the Pro Contact Application system but for information key features of the DPS Agreement are:

The DPS Agreement sets out the rules and obligations that apply to you as a member of the DPS.

The DPS Agreement is not a development or construction contract. Development or construction contracts will be awarded further to competitions run under the DPS.

Details of how competitions will be run are set out in Schedule 4 of the Agreement (Call for Competition – procedure). There is no guarantee that you will be awarded any work under the DPS. Even if we run a competition, we are not obliged to subsequently award any contract.

Full details of any further competition are not included in the DPS Agreement. These will be set out in the invitation to tender for the specific project.

You may be asked as part of any further competition:

• to provide evidence of any information you self-certified when you became a member; and/or
• to demonstrate your organisation meets a certain level of project specific financial and economic standing greater than the requirements to be met when you applied to the DPS.

Details of the type of development or construction contract that we (or another public body as relevant) may enter with you are set out in Schedule 3 of the Agreement (Template Contracts).

If requested to do so, you must provide a parent company guarantee in respect of any contract you are awarded under the DPS.

Affiliates can enter into any agreement you are awarded under the DPS but there are conditions which must be fulfilled, and you will be responsible for that affiliate.

Details of how we will manage the DPS are set out in Schedule 5 (DPS Management).

Members must always ensure that the information they provided when they joined the DPS is kept up to date. Failure to do so could result in a member being suspended or disqualified from the DPS.

There will be an annual financial check on members’ financial position to ensure that members continue to meet the financial standards required for membership.

Your liability to us is limited to £1million. However, liability under any development or construction agreement you may enter with us or another public body through the DPS will be greater and will reflect the specific project.

You will need to comply with provisions relating to:

• anti-bribery
• modern slavery
• freedom of information
• equality, diversity and inclusion

We have the right to terminate your DPS Agreement in certain circumstances including (but not limited to):

• you are disqualified from the DPS for any reason (such as failing an annual financial assessment, or you provided fraudulent information when you applied to become a member).
• you materially or persistently breach any of your obligations under the DPS Agreement.
• you breach the obligations relating to confidentiality, data protection or freedom of information; or
• there is a conflict of interest.

If the DPS Agreement is terminated, this does not automatically terminate any contracts you have been awarded in any further competition under the DPS. Those contracts will be subject to their own termination provisions.

If you enter a development or construction contract with a public body (and not with us), under the DPS, that public body will be solely responsible for the contract. We will have no liability for that contract.

Individual sites procured through the Delivery Partner DPS will be built out under our Building Lease, or other form of contract, and this will take precedence over the DPS Agreement once the supplier has entered into a Building Lease in relation to a specific site.

6. Enquires

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 0300 1234 500