Nicholas Soames – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2014-04-28.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of building information modelling in reducing the total cost of ownership for complex infrastructure assets; and if he will make a statement.

Danny Alexander

The 2011 Government Construction Strategy set a target that all publicly procured construction will require fully collaborative 3D Building Information Modelling (BIM) (with all project and asset information, documentation and data being electronic) as a minimum by 2016.

Infrastructure UK is working closely with the government and industry groups implementing BIM on new projects. Early adopter projects include the Ministry of Justice Cookham Wood Young Offenders Institute which has demonstrated an overall saving of around 20% with BIM as part of suite of efficiency measures deployed on the design and construction of the project. (A case study from Cookham Wood is attached to this response).

Major projects and clients are now implementing BIM on new infrastructure projects. It is still too early to draw conclusive evidence of whole life benefits. However High Speed 2 has made a specific commitment to deploy BIM and the Highways Agency are piloting BIM on the new A556 trunk road project from which evidence of benefits will be collated.