West Midlands housing associations to set up £10-40m legal panels

Midland Heart and Walsall Housing Group are acting as a joint contracting authority for the framework agreement, which will be made available to other housing providers as well as local authorities in the Midlands conurbation.

The two organisations envisage a minimum 5 and a maximum 28 participants to the framework agreement. There will be seven lots:

• Lot 1 — Governance, Corporate, Regulatory and Statutory.
• Lot 2 — Treasury and Finance.
• Lot 3 — Securitisation.
• Lot 4 — Homelessness, Housing Management, Home Ownership, Asset Management.
• Lot 5 — Property, Development, Construction
• Lot 6 — Employment, TUPE and Pensions.
• Lot 7 — Contracts, Commercial, Procurement, Health and Safety.
  

The initial contract period will be for two years commencing on or about 1 July 2016. Midland Heart and WHG will then have the option to extend the arrangements for up to a further two years.

The estimated value excluding VAT of the agreement is between £10m and £40m.

Midland Heart provides 33,000 affordable homes to more than 70,000 customers, while WHG owns and manages around 19,000 across Walsall.