Balfour Beatty has been awarded a place on the National Capital Works Framework for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) to design and build up to £400 million worth of large-scale Ministry of Defence construction projects across the UK.

Balfour Beatty joined a special ceremony at the DIO in the West Midlands last Friday to sign 'Partnering Charters' which set out a number of principles and behaviours that are intended to promote effective joint working.

Balfour Beatty is one of five contractors to be awarded a place on the framework which has a total value of up to £400 million over an initial four-year period, with the option to extend for up to three years. Each individual project will be valued up to £50 million.

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The National Capital Works Framework will operate alongside six regional frameworks and can be utilised at any defence site across the UK allowing for the delivery of a diverse range of high value, technically complex construction projects, and projects that require delivery across regional boundaries.

The framework will introduce the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) to Ministry of Defence construction projects. Balfour Beatty is a leading practitioner in this area and through its dedicated BIM ‘Centre of Excellence’ and technology partnerships with Autodesk and Bentley, is already providing support to the BIM standards required by government from 2016 to nearly sixty live projects across the UK.

Andrew Manley, Defence Infrastructure Organisation Chief Executive, said: "For the Armed Forces to live, work and train effectively on the military estate, the DIO is putting in place an agile new suite of contracts under Next Generation Estate Contracts. The Capital Works Frameworks provide for ever improving value for money, competitive tension and the ability to meet the demand of future requirements across the UK defence estate. Defence Transformation under the Strategic Defence and Security Review is driving major change and modernisation and we will be looking to our industry partners for their support by sharing their expertise with DIO service delivery staff as the programme moves forward and project requirements are identified."

(CD/MH)