Last edited 21 Sep 2020

BIM Task Group

The UK Government Construction Strategy was published by the Cabinet office on 31 May 2011. It proposed reducing the capital and operational cost and the carbon emissions from the construction and operation of the built environment by 20%. Central to this ambition were improvements delivered through the use of open, sharable asset information or Building Information Modelling (BIM).

The strategy stated that the '...Government will require fully collaborative 3D BIM (with all project and asset information, documentation and data being electronic) as a minimum by 2016'. This represented a minimum requirement for Level 2 BIM on all centrally-procured public projects. Level 2 was considered to be a managed 3D environment with data attached, but created in separate discipline models.

The BIM Task Group brought together expertise from industry, government, institutes and academia to strengthen the public sector's BIM capability and provide the information the industry needed to meet the government's BIM requirement. It was supported by the Department for Business Innovation & Skills and the Construction Industry Council.

There were six main working parties associated with the BIM Task Group:

Training and Education: Providing a long-term strategy to address the UK's inconsistent supply of BIM awareness and skills.
COBie data set requirements: Documenting COBie 2.4 for use in the UK.
Plan of Works: The Construction Industry Council (CIC) Plan of Works group communicated a collective understanding of BIM amongst the Professional Institutions.
BIM Technologies Alliance: An independent, non-product specific group facilitated by the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) focussing on providing generic advice and support to government.
UK Contractors Group: The UKCG assisted the BIM Task Group from a supply chain perspective.
Construction Products Association: Working with the BIM Task Group to ensure that product data was available for design and construction and that operational data could be fed back to manufacturers.

The BIM Task Group also included Government Soft Landings, established to encourage adoption of '...a mind-set and a process to align design and construction with operational asset management and purpose.'

In addition, the Construction Industry Council (CIC) was tasked with establishing a network of regional hubs to ensure up-to-date and consistent information was disseminated across the UK and allowing for local feedback to the BIM Task Group.

On 26 February 2015 Business Secretary Vince Cable launched Digital Built Britain, Level 3 Building Information Modelling - Strategic Plan, and the associated Digital Built Britain website. This represented the early strategy for defining level 3 building information modelling.

The Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) was established by the Government in 2017 to lead the next stage in the UK construction industry’s digital evolution, building on work started by the BIM Task Group. It is is a partnership between the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the University of Cambridge.