Skip to main content

Construction contract price indices aid efficiency

A new way of working has been launched for the UK highways maintenance and management industry.
February 22, 2012 Read time: 1 min
A new way of working has been launched for the UK highways maintenance and management industry.

2479 Highways Term Maintenance Association (HTMA), Civil Engineering Contractors Association (2993 CECA) and Building Cost Information Services of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (2994 BCIS) have collaborated to develop a set of new price adjustment indices specifically for term contracts in the highways maintenance industry.

Counties Cheshire West and Shropshire in England are the first to adopt the mechanism within their new contracts being issued later this month.

The three organisations have worked together to produce a monthly highway maintenance term contract indexation mechanism that effectively tracks costs to achieve lowest priced bids, fair allocation of risk between client and supplier, and accurate cost profiling.

The mechanism has been put before a client review panel that declared it to be fit for purpose and relevant for today’s industry.

Steve Ashley, chair of the HTMA procurement working group, said: “The industry as a whole has experienced intense periods of cost volatility and it is in the interest of all parties to reflect true costs in order to promote and encourage flexibility, forward planning and efficiency”.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • End of the road this year for the UK’s Highways Term Maintenance Association
    March 17, 2020
    The HTMA will cease operations by the end of the year
  • Software innovations
    June 22, 2012
    New developments in the software sector will improve construction efficiency. Standards organisation BSI is working with government, industry bodies, and private construction practices to create best practice standards for implementing Building Information Modelling (BIM). In 2011 the UK Government announced that all suppliers that wish to bid for public sector construction contracts must use BIM tools and techniques from 2016, making its implementation commercially critical for companies that wish to apply
  • Decarbonising the construction industry
    October 26, 2023
    Decarbonising the construction industry can yield rewards.
  • New tunnel contract format published
    May 7, 2019
    The International engineering federation FIDIC (the International Federation of Consulting Engineers) and ITA-AITES (the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association) are jointly publishing a new form of contract for tunnelling and underground works. Called The Emerald Book, this new contract form is intended to meet developments in the fast-growing underground market sector. The new Conditions of Contract for Underground Works (The Emerald Book) is expected to be widely used. Underground cons