The Building Cost Information Service (BCIS), provides cost and price data for the UK construction industry. It is a part of the

Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is a global professional body for surveyors, founded in London in 1868. It works at a cross-governmental level, and aims to promote and enforce the highest international standards in the va ...

(RICS).

History

BCIS was set up in 1961 to provide the profession with cost information in elemental format and to promote the use of elements and of

elemental cost planning Elemental cost planning is a system of Cost planning and Cost control, typically for buildings, which enables the cost of a scheme to be monitored during design development. 1951 saw the publication of the Ministry of Education Building Bulletin N ...

. The BCIS "Standard Form of Cost Analysis" (SFCA) remained an industry staple, largely unchanged, until the late 2000s. In 2012 the "New Rules of Measurement" for cost management throughout the construction process were accompanied by a modernised version of the SFCA. The BCIS approach is the most popular costing method employed by

quantity surveyor A quantity surveyor (QS) is a construction industry professional with expert knowledge on construction costs and contracts. Qualified professional quantity surveyors are known as Chartered Surveyors (Members and Fellows of RICS) in the UK and Ce ...

s in the UK.

References

{{authority control Construction organizations