We are told that when the Romans left Britain the inhabitants were surprised to find they missed some of the discipline imposed by the rule, which at the time they had found rather harsh.
So it is with developing associations and the passing of the Housing Corporation’s old grant application regime, and in particular the abandonment of total cost indicators.
TCIs are essentially a benchmark for what a development scheme should cost, taking into account factors such as location, type of scheme, size and so on.
The corporation currently publishes TCI tables that allow you to look up this benchmark for any particular scheme. It only takes a matter of minutes to calculate them from the tables. But TCI is apparently going to be dropped and the corporation is working on a new “development efficiency index”, which we understand may not have any element of cost benchmarking in it.
SDS Catalyst is a benchmarking club of over 50 large developing associations. Our members would like the corporation to continue to maintain and publish TCI tables. We also suggest TCI should be used to develop an efficiency index as one of a trio of indicators covering subsidy, cost and quality.
TCI will also be missed by local authorities, which currently often insist that a scheme subject to a section 106 agreement is delivered at a fixed percentage of TCI.
Without TCI as a benchmark, the negotiation of these agreements will be much more difficult and time-consuming.
Patrick Symington, Tribal HCH and David Shelton SDS Catalyst Development Benchmarking Club
Source
Housing Today
