About BWA
For over thirty years, BWA have given financial and management advice in respect of construction, development and facilities management across the whole spectrum of private and public enterprise.
Bernard Williams’ vision of an independent consultancy offering an holistic approach remains as valid today as it did in 1969 when the practice was founded. The vision has weathered boom and bust to inspire each new generation of construction and property professionals. As a result, partners and senior associates are in regular demand as lecturers and academic assessors.
A determined independence has encouraged the development of pioneering processes, techniques and procedures that are geared to giving clients unprecedented control over their construction and facilities costs.
Thirty years on, BWA’s innovative thinking continues to help new and established clients meet fresh challenges posed by the ever changing environments in which all organisations must operate both effectively and efficiently if they wish to survive.
Pioneering financial discipline
BWA’s pioneering financial discipline is built upon the Journal System of Cost Control devised in 1969. The Journal System was Britain’s first pro-active tool for continuous cost control, ensuring that agreed budgets would not be varied without express client approval.
Now fully computerised, the Journal System remains a key BWA management tool. It enables the independent cost consultant to set a firm cost plan, record the developing design and monitor the effect on the cost of each building element in both pre- and post-contract phases. A similar system is operated for the financial management of facilities.
More recently, the practice’s extensive database of facilities costs and performance benchmarks has been used as the basis of sophisticated benchmarking / modelling software applications.
An analytical approach
Working through the boom of the early 1970s prompted BWA to evolve a more scientific approach to development economics and appraisals. Refined into a total system, this emerged in 1972 as Property Development Feasibility Tables. An industry first, this publication took the mystique out of land valuation and development appraisal.
Building services were another largely undefined area. In 1984, BWA joined with services engineers Ronald Hurst Associates to produce Design Economics for Building Services in Offices – another breakthrough. A new expanded version of this important manual is now available.
Recognition of BWA’s niche expertise in the specialist field of building economics came with the invitation to write Building and Development Economics in the EC for Financial Times Management Reports. This international research project compared, for the first time, the efficiency of Europe’s construction industries. More recently, in 2005, BWA undertook a related project on behalf of the European Commission. This Pilot Study - entitled 'Benchmarking of use of Construction (Costs) Resources in the Member States' - examined the underlying reasons for construction cost variation across Europe.
Managing projects
BWA’s holistic approach to building and development economics and financial management led logically into project management. The practice has advised on schemes ranging from the creation of new communities to pioneering environmental developments and corporate relocations by major companies.
BWA rapidly identified corporate relocation as an appropriate area for their project management and cost consultancy expertise. In the 1970s and 1980s, the practice worked on relocation strategies for major clients including Conoco, IBM, Scottish & Newcastle Breweries and Shell. This success was consolidated in the 1990s with major commissions for the Department of Trade and Industry (Kingsgate House) and the Financial Services Authority’s new headquarters building at Canary Wharf. In the 00's, BWA have continued to broaden the range of their project management experience within a diverse range of new-build, refurbishment and fit-out projects for organisations such as Goldsmiths College, Royal Star & Garter Home for Disabled Ex Service Men and Women, and SJ Berwin (Solicitors).
Fitting-out
Following the first ten years’ activity in cost controlling small to medium-size fitting-out projects, BWA’s first major project in this field came in 1981 when they advised international business consultants Ernst & Young on their move into former government offices on London’s South Bank. The practice used the Journal System of cost control within an innovative fee management form of contract.
BWA’s expertise in advising on costs of fitting-out is now recognised throughout the UK, and significant inroads have also been made into Europe and other parts of the world.
Facilities Economics
When the new discipline of facilities management reached Britain in the early 1980s, BWA saw fresh markets for their consultancy skills. The practice gained recognition through its regular articles in Facilities journal.
These were collected in Premises Audits (1985), the first cost reference work for FM which revealed detailed analyses of running costs, used to advantage in premises audit and performance evaluation. The work was subsequently expanded into a much wider-ranging text Facilities Economics, which has rapidly become one of the leading reference works in the field.
In 1990, BWA set up a dedicated Facilities Consultancy Division to advise clients on benchmarking, outsourcing, management processes and facilities policy development.
Making sense of renewal
From inception, BWA have played a highly pro-active role in urban renewal, working with clients such as Urbed and local and regional community groups providing project services and financial management on a wide and varied range of redevelopment schemes.
Outside London, BWA’s Leeds office has become well acquainted with urban renewal, finding new uses for redundant mills. The office is now located in a converted waterside granary in the fashionable Calls area of the city. In 2002, BWA strengthened its Yorkshire presence with the acquisition of KL Scott Associates based in Barnsley.
Sustainability
BWA enjoy well-established credentials in green construction and development and sustainable technologies generally.
The practice worked with Greenpeace on the 1988 acquisition and refurbishment of its new UK office in North London, and in 1995 BWA project-managed the Building Research Establishment’s Energy Efficient Office of the Future.
In the run up to the Millennium, BWA advised Britain’s first ecological theme park – the £100 million Earth Centre in Yorkshire – on overall economic issues including fund raising.
Value for public money
Throughout their existence, BWA have advised public-sector clients ranging from Local Education Authorities to Central Government Departments, and the concepts of ‘value for money’ and, more latterly, ‘Best Value’ are thoroughly understood.
Under the Private Finance Initiative / Public Private Partnership (PFI/PPP), BWA have provided capital, life cycle and facilities management cost advice on some of the largest and most prestigious public sector schemes that have been / are being undertaken. These encompass health and education related projects as well as accommodation.
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