The New Construction Industry Council’s BIM “Protocol”

This article was produced by Olswang LLP, which joined with CMS on 1 May 2017.

The first edition of the CIC’s Building Information Model (BIM) Protocol (abbreviated to “CIC/BIM Pro”, but here referred to as “the Protocol”) was published without fanfare at the end of February this year. The Protocolreached the ability to deliver information and services of at least that of Level 2 in the maturity modelenable the production of Building Information Models at defined stages of a projectwill support the adoption of effective working practices in Project Teams was commissioned as part of the CIC’s response to the Government’s BIM Strategy, which set the ambitious target for the construction industry to have “” where supplying construction services to the Government. The stated purpose of the Protocol is to ““. It also claims in the rubric that using the Protocol ““.

While the CIC document is called a “Protocol”, it is not a protocol in the proper sense of the word. A protocol is an accepted or established code of procedure. The CIC document is a bundle of legal obligations, liabilities and – perhaps inevitably – limitations of liability. From a practical viewpoint, anyone expecting to find something in the way of “effective working practices” (to use the CIC’s words) may be disappointed. In fact, all practical requirements, such as the Levels of Data and Information Requirements, are banished to the two Appendices, and these will need to be carefully considered and completed by anyone using the Protocol. And there are no default provisions in those Appendices, which is a somewhat startling omission, especially when one reads the rubric to Appendix 2, which states “Parties may choose to include further detail if they require“.

At first blush, the Protocol raises all sorts of interesting questions and the Constructive team will be looking in more detail at its contents over the coming weeks …