Whole Life Costing (CIRIA)

Whole life costing (WLC) is changing the approach to design, procurement and construction and delivering major benefits.

Many public and private sector clients now procure on cost of ownership, not capital cost. Recent initiatives such as Achieving Excellence and the drive for ‘Egan compliance’ among housing associations demonstrate this trend. PFI and PPP also demand identification of whole life costs in order to prepare detailed financial and risk management plans for projects.

Establishing the cost of ownership of facilities is rarely straightforward. Performance and durability of components are inadequately considered and maintenance and operating costs rarely forecast.

However, for every unit of capital cost, 5 units are spent on maintenance and 200 on staffing the business activity. Savings in whole life costs can thus be dramatic over the operating life of the asset.

A local authority described how whole life costing is instrumental in the development of its schemes and a major Facilities Management (FM) contractor shared its experience in the development of whole life costs associated with PFI/PPP projects.

Whole Life Costing E4129 WLC report Manchester.pdf (97.03 kB)