17 new suppliers have been chosen for the latest Social Housing Emerging Disruptors (SHED) framework, supporting councils and housing associations in the procurement of non-traditional solutions.
Innovations from SMEs and micro businesses such as 3D concrete printing, thermal inspection drones, and green subsidence mitigation approaches all feature on the latest list. Worth up to £100million, renewable energy smart mobile towers, video repair reporting, robot under floor insulation installers, and real time damp and mould data are also included.
Procurement for Housing (PfH), the national social housing procurement services provider, has collaborated with Disruptive Innovators Network to identify firms leading the tech revolution in public housing. Launched in 2021, SHED aims to respond to feedback from housing associations and authorities on their difficulties accessing innovative and groundbreaking solutions from UK startups.
The lengthy procurement processes involved in public sector departments was a major obstacle, with smaller companies less capable of committing the necessary time, money and human resources. Meanwhile, management in the public sector was found to often lack specialist knowledge to identify which niche services would be most useful. Other firms were simply incapable of scaling due to landlords being unable to procure compliantly.
In an effort to overcome this, SHED is designed to be flexible and ‘light touch’ in terms of bidding processes. Portals allow landlords to browse and select products and services online remotely, with built-in pricing systems to expediting and simplifying contracting stages.
Companies and solutions selected in SHED4 include eco-friendly subsidence specialist Geobear Residential, Autonomous IoT – a renewable energy security and lighting tower manufacturer, Confurr, which uses video to help tenants log repair needs, and Switchee, which turns thermostats into real-time data delivery devices helping landlords proactively manage properties. Harcourt Technologies, a 3D concrete printing firm, and Vantage UAV which delivers drone-based property inspections (pictured), also made the list.
‘We had a range of firms bidding for the SHED this year and the 17 winners offer a wide variety of services. That’s a sign of where the social housing sector is right now and the myriad of problems and competing priorities it faces,’ said Neil Butters, head of procurement at PfH. ‘The market is responding to those challenges and our job with the SHED is to nurture both the SME supply chain and innovative procurement in the sector – both key goals of the new Procurement Act.’
‘Housing directors are inundated with the problems and risks of today, and often they don’t have time to explore how technology and AI can support them,’ said Annemarie Roberts, property lead at the Disruptive Innovators. ‘The sector is operating in a massively challenging environment, and one of the ways to meet increasing expectations and standards is to deploy innovative solutions. The SHED framework can help housing providers break this cycle, spot the best tech for their business and adopt it at scale.’
Find out more about the SHED4 framework here.
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Image: Pedro Ramos via Unsplash
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