New standard gives infrastructure teams practical tools to improve productivity

Moving from diagnosis to delivery

The infrastructure sector has recognised the need to address its productivity challenge for many years now. PAS 4010 and the ICE's accompanying guidance represent an important step towards doing so.

Scott Steedman, BSI’s standards director general, encouraged organisations across the sector to adopt the new standard.

“Infrastructure underpins economic growth, and almost every aspect of our daily lives," he said.

“With over £700 billion of investment committed in the government’s 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy, improving productivity is essential if we are to deliver high-quality projects at scale and achieve the outcomes the country needs.

“PAS 4010 addresses this clear imperative, providing a strategic framework for the entire industry, from clients and asset owners to contractors and suppliers, to improve productivity.

“We strongly encourage organisations across the built environment to adopt PAS 4010. We look forward to continuing our work with [the] ICE, DfT and wider industry to help build a more consistent, collaborative approach to delivering infrastructure.”

Another ICE-sponsored PAS on climate adaption pathways will be published by BSI in 2027.

Together, these specifications, alongside PAS 2080, will provide a complementary framework supporting the delivery of more sustainable, efficient and trusted outcomes for infrastructure.

BSI’s PAS 4010 and the ICE guidance are available now.

Joint industry statement in response to the PAS 4010 consultation: aligning around a common approach to infrastructure productivity

This statement is issued jointly by a collaborative group of leading UK infrastructure contractors and design consultants.

Collectively, the organisations represented finance, design, build, maintain and operate a significant proportion of the UK's infrastructure portfolio across transport, energy, defence, water, telecommunications and social infrastructure. Through our roles across the asset lifecycle, we share a common objective: improving the productivity, performance and value delivered through infrastructure investment.

We have come together because we recognise that productivity is one of the most important opportunities facing the infrastructure sector, and one that cannot be addressed by any single organisation acting alone.

A national imperative

The UK faces an unprecedented infrastructure challenge. Economic growth, energy security, resilience, housing delivery and decarbonisation all depend upon our collective ability to deliver more infrastructure, more efficiently and with better outcomes.

Improving productivity is therefore not simply an industry objective. It is fundamental to delivering the ambitions set out by government, clients and investors, while maximising value for taxpayers and customers. Yet despite widespread recognition of its importance, productivity remains inconsistently defined, measured and managed across the sector.

A whole-system challenge

Productivity is not solely a construction issue. The decisions that most significantly influence productivity are often made long before construction begins. Strategic planning, funding certainty, optioneering, procurement models, design maturity, standardisation, risk allocation and supply chain integration all have a profound impact on delivery outcomes. Productivity therefore depends on the actions of clients, asset owners, designers, contractors and suppliers alike.

Meaningful and sustained improvement will only be achieved through greater alignment across the entire infrastructure ecosystem.

The need for a common language

One of the greatest barriers to productivity improvement is the absence of a common language and a shared approach to productivity assessment.

Across the sector, organisations collect significant amounts of performance data, but often use different measures, definitions and methodologies. This makes benchmarking difficult, limits the transfer of learning and inhibits the industry's ability to understand where productivity value is being created, constrained or lost.

If productivity is to improve at scale, the sector must move towards greater consistency in how productivity is understood, assessed and discussed. Just as common approaches to safety have helped transform industry performance over the last two decades, a common approach to productivity has the potential to unlock significant improvements across the infrastructure sector.

Industry collaboration

Recognising this challenge, the organisations represented within this group are collaborating to develop a shared framework for productivity assessment that can be applied consistently across infrastructure programmes.

Our objective is not to create another reporting requirement. Rather, it is to establish a common approach that helps clients, designers, contractors and suppliers identify productivity opportunities, understand constraints and make betterinformed decisions throughout the asset lifecycle.

While organisations will continue to innovate and improve their own approaches, greater consistency will enable more effective benchmarking, stronger evidence-based decision making and faster transfer of learning across the sector.

Supporting PAS 4010

We welcome the development of PAS 4010 and support its ambition to improve productivity across infrastructure delivery.

The PAS represents an important opportunity to establish a common foundation for productivity improvement across the sector. In particular, we support its recognition that productivity is a whole-system challenge requiring collaboration across the entire value chain.

We believe PAS 4010 can play an important role in encouraging greater consistency in productivity principles, terminology and assessment approaches, while supporting the industry's ongoing efforts to align around common measures and shared objectives.

Key principles we encourage PAS 4010 to support

• Productivity should be recognised as a whole-system outcome shaped across the asset lifecycle, not solely during construction.
• Productivity improvement should be a shared responsibility across clients, designers, contractors and suppliers.
• The sector should move towards greater consistency in productivity language, assessment and reporting.
• Procurement, programme continuity, standardisation and early collaboration should be recognised as key enablers of productivity improvement.
• Productivity management should support better decision-making and value creation, rather than additional reporting requirements.

Looking forward

No single organisation can solve the productivity challenge alone.

However, by working collaboratively and aligning around common principles, common language and common approaches to assessment and improvement, the infrastructure sector can accelerate productivity growth, improve delivery outcomes and maximise the value generated from infrastructure investment.

The signatories are committed to continuing this collaboration and look forward to working with government, clients, industry bodies and supply chain partners to support the next generation of productivity improvement across UK infrastructure.

Signatories:

• Richard Whitehead, chief executive – Europe and India, AECOM
• Jerome Frost, chief executive officer, Arup
• Chris Ball, President - UK & Ireland, AtkinsRéalis
• Philip Hoare, group chief executive, Balfour Beatty
• John Wilkinson, chief operating officer, BAM, UK & Ireland
• Alex Vaughan, chief executive officer, Costain
• Richard Sanderson, general manager for Europe and UK, Jacobs
• Stuart Togwell, chief executive officer, Kier Group
• Cathal O’Rourke, group chief executive officer, Laing O’Rourke
• Mark Reynolds, executive chairman, Mace
• James Harris, group executive chair, Mott MacDonald
• Katy Dowding, President and CEO, Skanska UK
• Scott Wardrop, chief executive, VINCI Construction
• Richard Offord, chief executive officer, VolkerWessels UK
• Paul Reilly, UK&I President and managing director, WSP