Jo Whitehead looks back on ICN’s successful second year

It’s hard to believe, but on 4^th July, ICN celebrated its second birthday and has reached the halfway point through the four year term. What a fantastic two years it has been!

In the last 12 months we have welcomed seven new clients to the framework including Southway Homes; Salix Homes; Incommunities; Together Housing Group; ForHousing; Livv Housing and most recently Trafford . We now have a total of 28 clients calling off the framework. The increasing number of clients generates more call offs and work for all our  consultants and contractors on the framework. A  huge benefit of having a such a large number of clients is the lively contribution to our six monthly client sessions where we share experiences, discuss current hot topics and work collaboratively to achieve our objectives.

In November 2020 our new website went live and in April 2021 we launched the new portal. Recently we  held meetings with clients, some consultants groups and  contractors and the feedback we received about the new portal was fantastic! It’s easy to access and navigate, very user friendly and all documents are in one place. My personal view is that the portal has had a hugely positive impact on the framework, as in addition to all the good feedback received from the users, it has made the administration of the framework so much more efficient and transparent which enables me to focus my time on supporting clients and the framework supplier partners.

You will all be aware that it has been a really difficult 12 months in the construction market, with some of our contractors going into administration. Through the strength of ICN, framework members have come together to discuss how we can work  more collaboratively with our consultants and contractors to help each other and to continue developing much needed homes. It is a real benefit of the framework having so many skilled and supportive members to learn from, share experiences and to be able to react to challenges.

So much of our success would not have been achieved without the support of everyone involved in the framework, including clients and suppliers. Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to continue working with you in the coming year.