What you need to know about PAS 4010 and infrastructure productivity

The upcoming PAS 4010 and accompanying guidance will set out a shared system-wide approach to productivity, aligned with behaviours, that will be usable across the entire infrastructure value chain, the document’s technical author Mark Hansford told attendees at GIRI’s members’ meeting. 

PAS 4010: 2026 – maximising productivity in infrastructure development and delivery is being developed by the British Standards Institution (BSI), sponsored by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the Department for Transport. It is supported by a Technical Advisory Panel that includes industry experts from across the sector, and it’s aim, said Mark, is to provide the sector with what it has been missing: a consistent, shared system for embedding productivity across the life cycle of the project.

“Productivity in this sector is something we have been wrestling with for decades. We lose billions every year to avoidable error, rework, poor planning, fragmented decision-making, and misaligned incentives. Yet we know that when teams get the basics right, when the behaviours align, when information flows and decisions are made early and clearly, productivity improves dramatically.”

What is PAS 4010?

Mark explained that PAS 40140 introduces a productivity management strategy for projects and programmes that runs through the entire life cycle. It requires project and programme teams to do three things: 

• to carry out a systematic analysis of the drivers of productivity within their projects and programmes and identify the key constraints, risks, and opportunities to improve;
• to produce a plan to manage those constraints and risks and to maximise the opportunities; 
• to set targets against agreed benchmarks and monitor these to enable the plan to be delivered.

“The PAS is clear that this must be done collaboratively with the entire value chain, but ultimately, it must be owned and managed by a client. For it to work, it requires leadership from every member of the value chain, supported by the right governance processes, and the PAS sets out what good looks like at each stage of the project life cycle.”

It is not about vague aspirations, said Mark, but real and practical requirements that every member of the value chain ‘shall do’ to be compliant with the PAS. This language is important, because PAS 4010 is a specification, not a code of practice or guidance document. “The client bodies involved in the development, including the Infrastructure Client Group, have been clear that compliance with this specification is something they intend to embed into their contractual requirements so that the standard, and the productivity benefits it enables, are adopted in practice.”

What PAS 4010 does

First and foremost, said Mark, PAS 4010 defines productivity, and it does so as “improving effectiveness and efficiency at every stage of the project life”. “By effectiveness, it means consistently doing the right thing: selecting the right projects, making the right design choices, choosing the right delivery models, and the right delivery teams. By efficiency, it means doing things right, and minimising waste of materials, effort, energy, carbon, land use, and ecosystems.”

Secondly, the PAS sets out the behaviours required to make productivity improvement real, including expectations about leadership, collaboration, decision-making, and accountability. “In particular, it encourages leaders to create a culture of psychological safety in which people feel confident about speaking up and bringing forward better, more innovative, more productive ideas.” 

Finally, he explained that it focuses on proven ways of improving productivity, such as error reduction, collaborative planning, real-time insight, digital assurance, and clear roles and responsibilities. 

What PAS 4010 does not do

“It does not, at the moment, prescribe specific metrics, methods of data gathering or targets. These should be determined by individual projects and programmes. But it does reinforce the need for data to be shared in common formats, and requires parties to be transparent about the limitations of existing data, metrics and measurement methods, so that when the standard iterates, it can be continuously improved.”

However, most importantly, the PAS does not introduce a new industry based around PAS 4010 compliance. “This is crucial,” said Mark. “We are making it explicit that the requirements in the standard must be embedded into existing reporting, assurance, and audit functions because this is about strengthening what good organisations already do. It's not about creating a whole set of parallel processes, bureaucracies, or other compliance burdens.”

Current status

The first full draft has been reviewed and revised by the steering group and is now with the sponsors for final sign-off ahead of the public consultation planned to begin at the end of May and run throughout June. 

“This is the moment when the sector gets to shape the standard and ensure it is practical and proportionate. So engage with it, read it, comment on it, tell us what works and what doesn’t, because this will only succeed if the industry owns it. Your feedback on whether we have struck the balance between ambitious but usable, rigorous not bureaucratic, is essential.”

Guidance note

PAS 4010 will be accompanied by a guidance note, to be published along with the standard in October, that will help organisations use the standard. “This is as important as the standard,” said Mark. “The guidance note will provide a clear, accessible overview of PAS 4010. It will explain the structure, the intent and the logic, and how it fits with other standards, and provide practical advice on how to create the core productivity strategy around which the PAS fits.”

The guidance note will explain roles and responsibilities, how to embed PAS 4010 into governance, how to work collaboratively with the supply chain, and how to tailor it to different types and scales of projects so that it is applicable across all infrastructure. “We will include end-to-end illustrations for how to apply the PAS in practice, and we want some real-life case studies, which is where we need your help. If, once you have read the draft standard, you realise you have a case study that is PAS compliant, please share it with me, the ICE or via GIRI.”

What the guidance note won’t do, he promised, is introduce a whole new set of requirements and processes. “It will reinforce the principle that the PAS needs to be embedded into existing business process, because good businesses will already be doing 90% of what’s in this PAS. It will give the industry the means to use the PAS practically, proportionately, and confidently to help this industry become what we all know it can be: world leading.”

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