Frequently asked questions

What is the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF)?

The Social Housing Retrofit Accelerator (SHRA) is a fully-funded support service to help social housing providers across England successfully bid into the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF).                                         

The SHDF will upgrade a significant amount of the social housing stock currently below Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) C up to that standard, delivering warm, energy-efficient homes, reducing carbon emissions and fuel bills, tackling fuel poverty, and supporting green jobs.                                   

What is the Social Housing Retrofit Accelerator (SHRA)?

The Social Housing Retrofit Accelerator (SHRA) is a fully-funded support service to help social housing providers across England successfully bid into the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) 

When does SHDF support start and how long is it available for?

Our support service is available now and is open to all Registered Providers (RPs) in England. 

How we assess the support you need starts with your completing the self-assessment online and then us contacting you to arrange a triage/diagnostic call where we gauge your preparedness and agree what support is needed.

Who is eligible to receive help from the SHRA? 

All RPs registered in England can access our support as long as they meet the bid eligibility criteria. 

What type of support is on offer? 

We offer a range of proven support which has been developed with and for the social housing sector by housing retrofit and grant application experts.

A comprehensive online Knowledge Hub and on-demand masterclasses are available on our website, providing information on bid writing consortium forming and how/what to gather to support the application itself. 

Our planned events will include masterclasses, briefings, workshops, round tables, drop-in sessions, and podcasts covering a broad range of topics relevant to preparing an SHDF bid. In addition to this, you can get tailored 1:1 support.                                                   

How do I know if I am eligible for one-to-one support?

Our support is available to bidders with projects of 100 or more dwellings. This includes consortium bids which total 100 or more dwellings.

What does the 1:1 support involve? 

If you are preparing to lead an SHDF bid, the tailored 1:1 support will provide development input on the bid itself from technical and bid-writing specialists.

Support will be allocated based on your specific needs.  This is determined following a review of your self-assessment form and an initial one-to-one discussion (diagnostic/triage) with a member of our team.        

The support itself splits into two main areas, namely technical and bid preparation.  You can find out more from the "supporting you" page of our website. 

Who is providing support?

Funded by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the service is delivered by Turner & Townsend.

Our team is made up of technical and bid-writing specialists many of whom have worked in the housing and the retrofit sector.       

Why do I need to do a self assessment?

The self-assessment is designed to be a quick way to help registered providers identify how prepared they are to bid for the SHDF and indicate where additional preparation may be needed.

If you would like 1:1 support to help develop your SHDF bid, you will need to complete a self-assessment. This will enable us to: 

• Identify projects that are eligible for the in-depth, 1:1 support 
• Allocate resources to support eligible  projects                                                                              
• Define a support plan which details what support you will receive and or an action plan if you are not prepared/ready

How long will it take me to complete a self-assessment?

This should take  should take no more than 15 minutes to complete, if you have the information to hand.

The questions include asking for information on  who is the lead bidder, whether this is a consortium bid, the number of dwellings involved and their geographic region, budget estimates, levels of internal support and staffing, supplier procurement position, occupant engagement and planning status.  

Can the housing stock included in a bid be spread across several regions?

Yes.

When will the BEIS guidance be available and or bid window open?

It is not known at this time when this will happen but an announcement will be made prior to the guidance release.

What building archetypes are included? Will this be restricted to typical housing stock or will tower blocks be included?

We are waiting for the official BEIS guidance to confirm this.

How does SHDF funding integrate with other funding programmes such as LADS, HUGS, GHG?

A measure can only be funded by one grant scheme.

As part of your service, will you be putting local authorities and other social housing providers in touch to help form consortia?

Yes with the permission of individual bidders. On the self-assessment form you can tick the applicable boxes "yes I am interested in joining a consortium" and "yes I don’t mind my details being shared."

This enables us to mention you as an organisation who is interested, and or share your email details with your permission to another organisation in your region. It will be up to organisations to make contact and agree this with each other.