CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL REPORT
The Housing Infrastructure Fund is an integral part of a range of measures put in place by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to facilitate increased housing supply. Central to the Fund is the provision of infrastructure to unlock new housing sites.
The report by IFF Research and Belmana draws on an in depth review of the Fund including its design and implementation. It provides recommendations for evaluating the fund in four stages starting with the initial expression of interest stage (where bids were shortlisted for further development, before full business cases were brought forward for consideration for funding), then moving onto to delivery post-approval to the spend of grant funding and the delivery of infrastructure and housing outputs. The process evaluation will provide implementation and delivery lessons for future policy making.
The impact report sets out the methods for testing how many additional homes will result from the Fund (the key objective) as well as wider impacts such as transport improvements. It includes a review of existing data sources and a monitoring framework that will supply the data required to undertake the impact evaluation. Using this framework, the department and Homes England will also be able to monitor the extent to which projects are delivering housing and infrastructure as expected and the overall level of public sector expenditure drawn.