Price Adjustment Formulae Indices - Executive Director's official blog
09-Apr-2009 by contact@bcis.co.uk
From 1st April BCIS has taken on responsibility for the Industry's Formulae Price Adjustment Indices from BERR.
These indices were originally introduced in the 1970's to reduce the time and effort in allowing for fluctuations in labour and materials in contracts with a Variation of Price clause.
When I was a young surveyor this saved me the chore of checking the price of the hundreds of individual materials listed by the contractor in the back of his tender. So trust me at the time it was a visionary and revolutionary innovation.
The Committee that developed the Civil Engineering Formulae was Chaired by J W Baxter and the Building formulae by J G Osborne so they were referred to as the 'Baxter Indices' and 'Osborne Indices'. They were published under the auspices of the National Economic Development Office for construction, so were also known as the 'NEDO Indices'.
We will call them the Price Adjustment Formulae Indices (PAFI) but will recognise them by any of their previous aliases.
The Formulae method of calculating fluctuations and the indices were an industry initiative so BCIS is pleased to take responsibility for them on behalf of the industry.
Since they were first issued the industry has found many uses for the indices both in contracts and in economic analysis.
Over the next year we will be reviewing the indices and will update them if appropriate. We will also be publishing a guide to the indices in due course.