To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer of 23 February 2009, Official Report, column 107W, on the design for manufacture programme, if he will place in the Library a copy of the initial study commissioned by the Homes and Communities Agency from the chartered surveyors in 2008. (276965)

The purpose of the chartered surveyors’ interim report was to aid HCA’s understanding of the progress being made by developers in achieving the £60,000 target cost across the Design for Manufacture Competition.

The work comprised a sampling exercise that was not designed to be published because it would be likely to mislead the reader as to the performance of developers and building systems over time. Releasing this partial information could unfairly prejudice the commercial interests of developers and their supply chains.

The HCA plans to disseminate lessons learned from the competition once the final costs have been received, and based on a more comprehensive analysis of the completed outturn costs for all developers over the life of the competition.