DD2518 Developing a post construction monitoring platform

1.1. New buildings are a significant source of carbon emissions in London. The Mayor has powers to establish planning policy for new development through the London Plan and a responsibility to scrutinise referable planning applications. It was estimated that in 2017 38% of London’s carbon emissions were generated from homes and 36% from workplaces . Reducing carbon emissions from new build will require all new buildings to be built to high standards so they are very energy efficient, maximise the use of renewable energy and waste heat and minimise the need for cooling.

1.2. The London Plan currently set outs an energy hierarchy that requires major developments to be zero carbon through a series of steps. The energy hierarchy asks first for increased fabric and energy efficiency (‘be lean’), then consideration of low carbon and secondary (waste or environmental) heat sources (‘be clean’) and finally maximisation of on-site renewable energy generation (‘be green’).

1.3. The new Draft London Plan introduces a fourth step under the existing energy hierarchy, the ‘be seen’ stage. As part of the policy update, major developments will be required to monitor their energy performance and report to the Mayor for at least five years post construction via an online portal. This will be secured through a legal agreement between the respective local authorities and the applicants during the planning determination.

1.4. It is widely accepted that a gap exists between the building design stage and the actual building performance and that this will need to be bridged to ensure buildings are operating as efficiently as they are expected to. There is growing concern that buildings currently use as much as 2-5 times the amount of energy they are meant to and this ‘performance gap’ is undermining the move to zero emission buildings under the Mayor’s London Plan policies. Numerous studies (e.g. the Committee on Climate Change’s UK Housing: Fit for the Future) have also highlighted the importance of closing the performance gap and making actual energy performance data available.

1.5. Using post construction monitoring is considered cutting edge practice and London is at the forefront of both national and city led energy policy by securing actual energy performance data. The proposals were welcomed during public examination by both experts, NGOs and industry stakeholders with a range of both small and larger developers supporting the initiative.

1.6. To enable the actual energy use and carbon emissions of new developments to be monitored and reported, the GLA is developing a post construction monitoring platform which applicants will use to upload their energy data. The monitoring platform will be publicly available to help raise awareness both for developers and occupants on actual energy performance and enable a comparison to design standards.

1.7. The policy will apply to developments which submit a planning application after the new London Plan is adopted and will help to ensure developments meet their specified performance, help to improve design methods and inform future GLA policy. The process will require building owners/managers to submit key pieces of information on energy consumption, renewables and heat network efficiencies to ensure compliance with the GLA’s zero carbon targets and inform future carbon targets and policy.

1.8. In December 2017 the GLA entered into a contract with UCL (approved under cover of DD2184 - London Building Stock Model) until October 2018 with a value of up to £120,000 for consultancy services to develop a new open-source, pan-London Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data model (the ‘London Building Stock Model” (LBSM). The tool provides a central database for presenting publicly available energy performance data (or estimates of performance) related to London’s existing building stock. The tool is also intended to store carbon and energy data collected through the Mayor’s Energy for Londoners programme and associated policies, and act as a single repository for all London’s building performance data to inform policies and programmes.

1.9. As the purpose of the LBSM is to act as a single repository for building performance data, in August 2019, the Assistant Director of Environment (under cover of ADD2356) approved expenditure of up to £39,750 to contract UCL to undertake the development of the post-construction monitoring platform by extending the LBSM. A single source justification agreement was submitted to enter into a new contract with UCL to deliver the additional post-construction monitoring layer as part of the LBSM on the grounds that UCL has had previous involvement in the project and to enable them to continue existing work which cannot be separated from the new project/work.

1.10. UCL was awarded the contract and through their work we have since identified additional work that is necessary to finalise the post-construction monitoring platform. This is mostly down to GLA’s decision to host the LBSM ourselves (in GLA’s servers) and the lack of in-house tools and support regarding a user management system, both of which entail additional work for the post-construction monitoring platform. The initial work undertaken supported the GLA in the development of the ‘be seen’ methodology, delivered a reporting template and set the basis for the development of a dynamic system that allows lodged reports to be directly displayed in the post-construction platform. The total cost for this additional work (covered in more detail in section 2) is estimated at up to £15,914 and will be completed by April 2021. The total cost of this contract (including the previous work and this additional work) would therefore be up to £55,664.

1.11. Officers, therefore, propose that UCL are contracted to undertake the additional work associated with the development of the post-construction monitoring platform as it represents work that cannot be separated from the recent service they have provided. It is not deemed an effective use of time or resources to procure different contractors to finalise the integration of the new monitoring platform with the LBSM for the implementation of the new London Plan monitoring requirement, and the expertise required is not available in house. Officers acknowledge that section 9 of the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code requires, where the expected value of a contract for services is between £10,000 and £150,000 the services required should be procured competitively or called off from an accessible framework. Section 10 provides however, that an exemption from this requirement may be approved where the proposed contractor has had previous involvement in a project or is to continue existing work which cannot be separated from the new project/work. Approval of an exemption from the requirements of section 9 of the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code is therefore sought.

1.12. The contract will be managed by GLA officers and its value has been based on ongoing discussions held with UCL to determine a detailed scope for this additional piece of work.

2.1. The objective of this additional work is to finalise all the necessary aspects of the post construction monitoring platform and finalise the extension of the LBSM tool to develop and publish the online platform.

2.2. A staged approach has been agreed with UCL with the tasks related to this piece of work including:

Phase 2a: Completion by February 2021

• enable functionality to submit ‘be seen’ planning data via a webform;

• provide additions to the LBSM database to store ‘be seen’ planning data;

• enable a functionality to add simple layer of data for the planning stage (marker on map with tabular data);

• enable cross reference of the platform to the LDD;

• add superset front end to compare the ‘be seen’ submissions to the planning submissions on LDD;

• begin work on xml output format processing; and

• commission Mastodon C to identify solutions for the user management system.

Part 2b: Completion by April 2021

• enable dynamic charts on the interface and provide front end design for all ‘be seen’ reporting stages;

• make additions to the LBSM to store as built and in-use stage data; and

• finalise the user management functionality with Mastodon C for the document upload and retrieval process.

2.3. The expected outcome is the development and finalisation of the post-construction monitoring platform, a tool that will allow public disclosure of energy performance data of new major developments in London and which will help better understand the performance gap in London to help inform future policy.

3.1. Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as public authorities, the Mayor and the GLA are subject to a public-sector equality duty and must have ‘due regard’ to the need to (i) eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation; (ii) advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not; and (iii) foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not. Protected characteristics under section 149 of the Equality Act are age, disability, gender re-assignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and marriage or civil partnership status.

3.2. The equality impacts have been considered while developing this and the original (ADD2356) ADD documents, and it is not anticipated that the policy will have a bigger impact or unequal outcomes on certain groups. It is intended to capture real life energy usage data to help raise awareness both for developers and occupants on actual energy performance and enable a comparison to design standards. As such, this is an inclusive policy which will apply to all new major developments in London with a platform which will also be made publicly available so that everyone can have access.

3.3. We, therefore, do not expect the policy to create any disadvantage to people with different protected characteristics.

3.4. Where this activity highlights issues where there may be a disproportionate effect on groups with protected characteristics, the GLA will address them to ensure compliance with its duty under the 2010 Equality Act.

Key risks and issues

4.1. This work links to the Mayor’s Environment priorities including the ambition for London to be zero carbon by 2030 and enables the implementation of the new draft London Plan energy policies that will help ensure new build plays its role in meeting the zero carbon target.

4.2. This work is expected to involve the processing of energy performance data from residential buildings and has been discussed with the Information Governance Team. To ensure the GLA complies with the GDPR, data will be held and processes at an aggregated level: the energy data will be per Class Use (i.e. area weighted energy data for all residential uses within a development rather than individual data per dwelling).

4.3. The GLA are not aware of any conflict of interest present with appointing UCL to do the additional work required.

5.1. Executive Director’s approval is sought for the additional expenditure in the sum of £15,914 on consultation services for the single source appointment of UCL to undertake further work for the delivery of the GLA’s post-construction monitoring platform. This is in addition to the expenditure approved under ADD2356 for £39,750 therefore taking the total spend for this programme to £55,664.

5.2. The funding for this programme will come from the Climate Change Mitigation Team’s 2020-21 budget. Payment is to be made in arrears, following evidence of achievement in milestones. The indicative profile of expenditure is expected to take place in February and March 2021.

6.1. The decisions requested of the Executive Director (in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code) concern the exercise of the GLA’s general powers, falling within the GLA’s statutory powers to do such things considered to further or which are facilitative of, conducive or incidental to the promotion of economic development and wealth creation, social development or the promotion of the improvement of the environment in Greater London; and in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:

• pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;

• consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and

• consult with appropriate bodies.

6.2. In taking the decisions requested, the Executive Director must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010 and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Executive Director should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.

6.3. Section 9 of the Contracts and Funding Code (the ‘Code’) requires the GLA to seek a call-off from a suitable framework, where possible, or if not, undertake a formal tender process which will be managed by TfL in respect of the services. However, the director may approve an exemption from this requirement under section10 of the Code upon certain specified grounds. One of those grounds is that contractor has had previous involvement in a project or is to continue existing work which cannot be separated from the new project/work. Officers have indicated at paragraph 1.10 -1.11 of this report that this ground applies and that the proposed contracts affords value for money.

6.4. On this basis the director may approve the proposed exemption if satisfied with the content of this report. If so, approved officers must ensure that the contract is varied in accordance with its provisions before the additional services commence.