The Housing Minister has told Housing Associates to create jobs and apprenticeships for construction works in return for accessing government cash for affordable homes.

John Healey expects all associations to ‘raise their game’ to help people onto the property ladder and keep their homes during the downturn.

In exchange the government has agreed to increase the amount of grant it contributes to the housing association-led mortgage rescue scheme.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told trade unionists expenditure will be cut on ‘unnecessary programmes’ and ‘lower priority budgets.’

He said the labour party would reduce spending on “unnecessary programmes” and cut out inefficiencies. However, he echoed business secretary Peter Mandelson’s message that frontline services would be protected.

The Government’s failure to meet its own climate change targets could result in taxpayers paying millions of pounds every year, according to a new report by the Environmental Audit Committee.

The Committee’s report found that although the Government has made progress in areas like transport, it has failed to make cuts in the most polluting areas including buildings, recycling and the amount of electricity from renewables.

The Government has pledged to reduce carbon dioxide from its own buildings and transport by 12.5% by 2012 on 1999 levels. If the target is missed the Government will have to pay millions of pounds extra to “offset” the carbon dioxide produced, at a significant cost to the taxpayer.

Framework arrangments which are pre-tendered to be OJEU compliant can offer public sector procurement officers a “fast track’ way to get projects on site sooner and benfit from asssured levels of quality and sustainability, through measurable KPI’s, to deliver efficiency savings. A range of building products and service Framework Arrangements, including one for procuring windows, is avaialable free of charge to any public sector buyer through LHC

The large scale of investment in new secondary schools and Academies through the BSF programme may be overshadowing the equally important “Primary capital” programme which aims to make Britain’s Primary Schools “fit for 21st Century teaching and learning.”

By 2033 the goal is that at least half of all primary schools will have been re-built or refurbished. Although much smaller than secondary schools, primaries are much more numerous across the country.