Presented by the Scottish BIM delivery group, which was set up by the Scottish Futures Trust and the Scottish Government, the plan’s brief is to support the Scottish Government in meeting its objective to move towards a digital built environment and put into place the recommendations from the review of Public Sector Procurement in Construction.

Chaired by David Philp FCIOB, a BIM director at Aecom, the delivery group has recommended the requirement of BIM Level 2 for all projects above the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) threshold of £4.32 million.

Projects that cost less than this figure will be assessed to see whether the implementation of BIM would be beneficial.

The plan assumes that this assessment will be a requirement for relevant procuring authorities, and that a BIM decision matrix will be developed for them to use to understand if their project would benefit from adopting BIM.

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The document sets out five stages, or “horizons”, in BIM implementation. Following a planning stage, set to be completed this month, there will be a mobilisation phase, delivery of pathfinder projects, development of Scottish Government guidance and finally the launch of BIM Level 2.

Commenting on the launch of the implementation plan, Mr Philp said: “It is an exciting time for the Scottish construction industry as we have a great opportunity to change the industry. I have no doubt in my heart that we will be successful.

“People have been talking about improving the industry for the last 40 years, but this is the first time we genuinely make a chance of making a change.”