NEWS Levy causing concern MPs are right to criticize Government over Apprenticeship Levy, says FMB: backing the BIS Select Committee which was unhappy about the Government’s lack of consultation on the new Apprenticeship Levy. Sarah McMonagle, Head of External Affairs at the FMB, said: “The findings of today’s report (1st <strong>Feb</strong>ruary) by the BIS Select Committee reflect widespread anxiety within the construction sector that the new Apprenticeship Levy is being implemented without sufficient consultation. With little over a year until the Levy will be introduced, construction SMEs are still in the dark over how the new levy will work alongside the existing Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) levy. Given that the Levy is about enabling more apprenticeship training, and in construction it is SMEs that do the vast majority of training, this lack of clarity is distinctly unhelpful.” Government tax avoidance measures could cost development industry £660m a year The British Property Federation (BPF) has warned that Government proposals to restrict the tax deductibility of interest – which will essentially increase the price of debt - could have a disproportionate effect on debtreliant industries such as real estate and infrastructure. Ion Fletcher, director of policy (finance) at the British Property Federation, commented: “While we are wholly supportive of the Government’s plans to clamp down on tax avoidance, the current proposals go much further than is necessary and are particularly punitive for capital intensive industries like real estate. Almost a million jobs around the country rely on sustained investment in commercial and residential property and the proposals put these at risk. New website hosts wealth of data on energy efficient buildings The Digital Catapult has created the Building Data Exchange to stimulate innovation and help constructors build more efficient properties. A wealth of information on best practice and pitfalls in construction of modern, energy efficient homes, offices, shops and public buildings is to be shared through a new Building Data Exchange. The Exchange has been created by the Digital Catapult centre to allow designers, developers and constructors to take advantage of the wealth of information gathered over the last six years by Innovate UK’s £8 million Buildings Performance Evaluation programme. The full data set will be available for a hackathon on 5-7 <strong>Feb</strong>ruary. It will be made available to the public shortly afterwards as part of a three-year Catapult programme to encourage interaction between the construction industry and digital innovators. Housebuilding jobs bonanza Over 100,000 new jobs were created in England alone last year as a result of the big increase in house building, a report released in January, ‘Building Communities, Boosting Employment,’ revealed. Analysis by the Home Builders Federation shows that the house building industry is now supporting around 667,000 jobs, and details how local economies the length and breadth of the country are benefitting from the thousands of additional homes now being built. House building rates have rocketed over the past few years. Improvements to the planning system and the highly su<strong>cc</strong>essful Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme have helped house builders increase output by around a third in just two years. The most recent Government figures show that there were 170,690 net additions to the housing stock during 2014/15, an increase of almost 25% on the previous year. The main component of this new stock was from 155,080 new build completions. 50 contractors appointed to £836 million New Build Housing Framework Re:allies, the strategic collaboration of three of the largest social housing consortia in the UK, Procure Plus, Efficiency North and Central Housing Investment Consortium (CHIC), has awarded contracts to 50 construction companies of all sizes over the four lots of its New Build Housing framework. Managed by Procure Plus on behalf of Re:allies, the framework offers options for innovative offsite manufacturing as well as traditional new build, and has an estimated total £836 million demand pipeline over its four year lifetime. In line with the Government’s agenda for the sector, which recognizes the need for more investment in affordable new housing and an increase in training resources to deliver it, the Re:allies New Build framework offers not only a swift, flexible and costeffective route to providing new homes, on both a small and large scale basis, but also the added benefits to local communities of employment and training opportunities. 4
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