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Sources

The primary documents, and which of them are actually free.

The primary documents this publication's writing rests on, grouped by subject. ICMS 3 is published free in full, and so is IPSAS 45, with its Basis for Conclusions in the same document. For the ISO asset management standards, the committee's stated reasons for the 2024 changes are published free.

Every link below was read while writing the material that cites it. Each note says whether the link carries the full document or an official summary, preview, sample or published commentary on it, so a reader knows what the link contains.

Asset management

For the 55000 family, what is listed is the committee’s published reasoning behind the 2024 changes, which explains why the requirements changed. The World Road Association manual is free in full, and worth reading for where it stops as much as for what it says.

ISO 55000:2024, vocabulary, overview and principles

ISO’s product page: the publication details and ISO’s own summary of the standard, not the full text.

Used onConformance is not maturity, and the body that says so is selling nothingAudited on the transactions, unaudited on the basisISO 55001 now requires you to write down how you decideNothing tells you when a record stopped being trueOperational control now says life cycle management, which is a larger change than it looksThe competence you need is not in the asset management functionYou cannot buy an outcome you cannot specifyAccrual conversion gave three years. It did not give anyone a register.Asset management system01.4 Whole-life cost and the operating consequence04.1 An asset management system that is scoped04.6 Alignment of the financial and technical view

ISO 55001:2024, asset management system requirements

ISO’s product page: the publication details and ISO’s own summary of the standard, not the requirement text. The contents, foreword and introduction cited in this publication are taken from the standard’s preview pages hosted on the ANSI webstore, not from this page.

Used onConformance is not maturity, and the body that says so is selling nothingNobody will give you a deterioration curveOperational readiness has seven conditions. Handover delivers two.A gate that has never been failed is not a controlA strategic asset management plan that has never stopped anything is a descriptionAt handover, every review arrives after the leverage has goneAudited on the transactions, unaudited on the basisEvery organisation has a risk register. Ask for the other oneISO 55001 now requires you to write down how you decideISO 55001 tells you what to build. It will not tell you what to build firstKnowledge has a departure dateNothing tells you when a record stopped being trueOperational control now says life cycle management, which is a larger change than it looksPreventive became predictive, and the second needs three things the first did notThe competence you need is not in the asset management functionYou can place the activity outside. You cannot place the accountability thereYou cannot buy an outcome you cannot specifyAccrual conversion gave three years. It did not give anyone a register.Operational readinessAsset management systemStrategic asset management plan (SAMP)Predictive actionComponentisationExternally provided processesAsset register01.1 Need and outcome01.2 The decision-making framework01.4 Whole-life cost and the operating consequence01.5 Information requirements, set before design02.2 Change, planned and unplanned02.4 Externally provided processes and services02.6 Competence of whoever is assuring03.1 Information transfer against stated requirements03.2 Knowledge, as distinct from information03.4 Recognition onto the asset register03.5 Operational readiness of the organisation04.1 An asset management system that is scoped04.2 The SAMP and the line back to organisational objectives04.3 Asset data and its quality04.4 Performance evaluation and internal audit of the system04.5 Predictive action04.6 Alignment of the financial and technical viewOperational readiness checkAsset register packageWarranty register builderTurnover package composerCriticality screenRenewal profile

ISO/TC 251, Updated Guidance on Asset Management System Requirements, ISO 55001:2024

Free. The committee stating why each 2024 change was made.

Used onA strategic asset management plan that has never stopped anything is a descriptionEvery organisation has a risk register. Ask for the other oneISO 55001 now requires you to write down how you decideKnowledge has a departure dateNothing tells you when a record stopped being trueOperational control now says life cycle management, which is a larger change than it looksPreventive became predictive, and the second needs three things the first did notYou can place the activity outside. You cannot place the accountability thereStrategic asset management plan (SAMP)Predictive actionExternally provided processesAsset lifecycle method

UK BIM Framework, Information management according to BS EN ISO 19650, Guidance Part 3, Operational phase of the asset life-cycle, edition 1

Free in full, published September 2020 by the UK BIM Framework with BSI permission to quote the standard. This is the nearest thing the series has to a published rationale, and it is where the standard is described as voluntary and as conveying no obligation unless a contract or an organisational policy creates one. It also names the transfer of information from the project information model to the asset information model at the start of the operational phase, which is the turnover package under its proper name.

Used onA delivered file is not an accepted recordTurnover package composerAsset lifecycle method

PIARC Asset Management Manual, 2.3.3, identifying critical assets

Free and global. States that critical assets have a high consequence of failure but not necessarily a high likelihood of failure, and should be identified separately and assessed in greater detail. States on the same page that risk is likelihood multiplied by consequence. Both are right and practice merges them, which is what this tool exists to show. Also the source of the consequence categories used here: safety, reputation, asset loss or damage, service reduction or failure, operational, environmental, financial and contractual.

Used onCriticality screen

GFMAM, Asset Management Maturity: A Position Statement, second edition, September 2021

Free in full, 16 pages, ISBN 978-1-7774676-4-7. Agreed across twelve national and regional asset management societies including the IAM, SMRP, the Asset Management Council, the Gulf Society for Maintenance and Reliability and EFNMS. States that a level of maturity represented by conformance to ISO 55001 may not deliver all the value stakeholders want. Names four levels, Instinct, Dependence, Independence and Interdependence, publishes the characteristics of mature organisations under five headings, and says of itself that it is not a tool for assessing asset management.

Used onConformance is not maturity, and the body that says so is selling nothing

GFMAM, Guidelines for Assessing Asset Management Maturity, publication page

The companion to the position statement, published with it and listed among its references (reference E). GFMAM’s publication page describes it as guidelines for assessing asset management maturity "in a reliable and repeatable manner", to be read with the position statement and the Specification for an Asset Management Maturity Assessor. The link is the publisher’s page for the document, and it is cited here for the publisher’s description of it.

Used onConformance is not maturity, and the body that says so is selling nothing

BUILDER Sustainment Management System, US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory

Fact sheet free. The method is public: a Condition Index on a 0 to 100 scale, predicted from the component’s expected life-cycle stage and then corrected against inspection, with the condition-versus-time model developed in ERDC-CERL research on the Weibull distribution. The software itself sits behind a .mil login. ERDC describes the system as a response to repeated GAO criticism of DoD facility management practice, across an Army estate of 165,000 buildings and 1.1bn square feet.

Used onNobody will give you a deterioration curve

ISO 14224:2016, Petroleum, petrochemical and natural gas industries, Collection and exchange of reliability and maintenance data for equipment

Sold; the introduction and clause 1 are in the free iTeh sample. Standardises operator collection of reliability and maintenance data with a common taxonomy and failure-mode thesaurus, and says data collection is an investment that can need several years of operation before analysis is confident.

Used onReliability can be specified like mass. Building owners do not.

ISO/TS 55010, alignment of financial and non-financial functions in asset management

Sold; the abstract and the document status are free on the catalogue page. A Technical Specification rather than a standard, which ISO describes as the deliverable for work still under technical development or where agreement on an International Standard is not immediately possible. The 2019 first edition is withdrawn and the 2024 second edition is already marked for revision.

Used onThe project crosswalk reaches capitalisation. What survives it?

Cost, estimating and whole life

ICMS 3 is the one international standard here that is free in its entirety, Basis for Conclusions included. Both GAO guides are public in full. AACE publishes a five-page sample of each of its two classification practices, and each sample carries the classification matrix itself with the paragraphs that qualify it, which is more than this page said of them until 5 September 2026.

ISO 15686-8:2008, Buildings and constructed assets, service-life planning, part 8: reference service life and service-life estimation

Abstract free, the standard is CHF 181 for 36 pages. The abstract itself states that the standard does not give guidance on how to estimate the values of factors A to G, which are the seven multipliers its own method depends on. ISO/TC 59/SC 14. Confirmed in 2018, now at stage 90.92, to be revised, and expected to be replaced by the revised parts 1 to 3.

Used onNobody will give you a deterioration curve

Hughes, Ancell, Gruneberg and Hirst, Exposing the myth of the 1:5:200 ratio, ARCOM 2004

Free in full. The paper that could not replicate 1:5:200 and published costed data for three real office buildings instead, over 25 years, discounted to a common base date and with finance costs included. Table 4 gives construction, maintenance, replacement, other occupancy and aggregate wages separately, which is what makes the scope boundary testable rather than arguable. Its measured ratios are 1:0.5:12.8, 1:0.4:13 and 1:0.3:9.4. The authors state their own limitations, including no regional variation and possibly incomplete business costs.

Used onLifecycle cost sensitivity

AACE International RP 56R-08, cost estimate classification for building and general construction, rev. 7 August 2020

A five-page sample of the 21-page RP, published free. It carries Table 1 (the classification matrix with the accuracy ranges) and the paragraphs that qualify it. The deliverables maturity matrix that determines the class, Table 3, is not among the sample pages. Until 5 September 2026 this entry called the sample a table of contents, which it is not.

Used onAn estimate is a measure of how well the scope is definedEstimate classContingency02.3 Forecast credibilityEstimate range check

NASA Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Handbook, NASA/SP-2016-3404/REV1

Free in full on the NASA Technical Reports Server. The document that says a project WBS must correlate exactly through level seven to the financial accounting structure, and that the WBS is the common relational reference point between the budgeting, scheduling, cost accounting and time keeping systems. Its scope for that correlation is the life of the project.

Used onThe project crosswalk reaches capitalisation. What survives it?

DCMA EVMS Business Practice 4, EVMS Surveillance, revised 4 November 2025

Free, 13 pages, read in full 5 September 2026. Page 8: the DECMs are a first step in assessing an EVMS and provide indicators where a system may be producing unreliable data; every out-of-threshold result must be addressed, but an out-of-threshold metric does not automatically result in a finding. Surveillance must cover 18 named guidelines, including guideline 6, using all associated Standard DECMs over a four-year cycle.

Used onSchedule logic check

Appraisal and evaluation

The Green Book and its optimism bias uplifts, and the review that measured how rarely anyone checks whether a project worked.

HM Treasury, The Green Book, 2026 edition

Free to read.

Used onOperations is told to take part in the business case. Nobody asks it to sign.Doing the project right, and doing the right projectEvery appraisal can be right and the portfolio still wrongThe largest contributor to optimism bias is the document that starts the projectWeighting and scoring is the method the guidance warns againstBusiness as usual (BAU)Do minimumTheory of changeBenefits realisationReference class forecastingOptimism bias upliftAsset lifecycle method

HM Treasury, International Guide to Developing the Project Business Case

Free in full. The Five Case Model as HM Treasury published it for use outside the United Kingdom; the financial case exists to demonstrate affordability and funding and to resolve funding gaps across the life span of the scheme. EXPRO’s Outline and Full Business Case procedures list it as their first reference. Read 24 September 2026.

Used onOperations is told to take part in the business case. Nobody asks it to sign.Asset lifecycle method

Organisation of the Expenditure and Projects Efficiency Authority, Umm Al-Qura, 21/7/1442 (5 March 2021), Arabic

Free in full, 14 articles, in the Official Gazette. Article 1(5) defines government entities as ministries and other bodies funded from the state’s general budget; Article 4(12) tasks the authority with verifying stage gate requirements before projects are included in the budget and through every stage; Article 4 opens without prejudice to the competences of other bodies. Read in the Arabic on 24 September 2026.

Used onOperations is told to take part in the business case. Nobody asks it to sign.Stage gate

HM Treasury, Supplementary Green Book Guidance, Optimism Bias

Free, 15 pages. Table 1 gives upper and lower bound uplifts for capital expenditure and works duration by project type; Tables 2 to 4 give contributory factors. Evidence base is Mott MacDonald 2002; the Green Book 2026 (6.81) ranks these generic values below an organisation’s own forecast-error data. Read in full 5 September 2026.

Used onThe largest contributor to optimism bias is the document that starts the projectWhether it was worth doing is the least evaluated questionOptimism biasReference class forecastingOptimism bias uplift

Flyvbjerg, Holm and Buhl, Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects: Error or Lie?, Journal of the American Planning Association 68(3), 2002

Free, the authors’ own copy on arXiv. 258 transport projects in 20 countries: costs underestimated in 86%, by 28% on average. States that the data are insufficient to decide whether private projects perform better or worse than public ones, and why private data are hard to get. Read in full 6 September 2026.

Used onPrivate projects overrun too. The difference is who counts.

Flyvbjerg, Holm and Buhl, What Causes Cost Overrun in Transport Infrastructure Projects?, Transport Reviews 24(1), 2004

Free, the authors’ own copy on arXiv. The first statistically significant test of ownership against cost escalation in this field, by its authors’ description: 258 projects, ownership known for 183. Table 1 gives the fixed-link result (private 34%, other public 23%, state-owned enterprise 110%, N=15). The 4.64 points of escalation per year of implementation is from the same paper. Read in full 6 September 2026.

Used onPrivate projects overrun too. The difference is who counts.

Flyvbjerg, Garbuio and Lovallo, Delusion and Deception in Large Infrastructure Projects, California Management Review 51(2), 2009

Free, the authors’ own copy on arXiv. The two explanations set side by side: optimism (delusion) and strategic misrepresentation (deception, the principal-agent case). Its abstract states that the private sector, the public sector and partnerships between them all have a dismal record on large-project cost and performance promises. Abstract read 6 September 2026.

Used onPrivate projects overrun too. The difference is who counts.

Flyvbjerg and Budzier, Why Your IT Project May Be Riskier than You Think, Harvard Business Review, September 2011

Free, the authors’ own copy on arXiv. 1,471 IT projects, 92% at public agencies; average cost overrun 27%, one in six over 200%. The authors report little difference between the public agencies and the private companies in the sample. Carries a named regional case, a bank core-system replacement completed 18% over cost and 7% late, presented as a success. Read in full 6 September 2026.

Used onPrivate projects overrun too. The difference is who counts.

Bajari, Houghton and Tadelis, Bidding for Incomplete Contracts: An Empirical Analysis, NBER Working Paper 12051, February 2006

Free. 414 California highway paving contracts of 1999 and 2000, awarded to the lowest bid: final payment averaged 4.8% above the winning bid, and the structural estimates put adaptation costs, the cost of changing the contract after award, at about 10% of the winning bid, with market power a modest component. Published in the American Economic Review in 2014; the working paper is what was read, 6 September 2026.

Held, not yet used

MoSPI, Flash Report on Central Sector Projects costing Rs 150 crore and above, May 2024

Free. India’s monthly count: 1,817 ongoing projects, 458 with cost overrun against original cost (20.70% in aggregate), 831 delayed against the original completion date, 554 against the latest approved date, average time overrun 35.1 months, with the reasons implementing agencies report. The report says its list is non-exhaustive and its data are as reported by the agencies.

Used onPrivate projects overrun too. The difference is who counts.

Independent Project Analysis, Edward Merrow on why megaprojects fail, 11 January 2012

IPA’s own page, summarising its founder’s book Industrial Megaprojects (Wiley, 2011): a 65% failure rate for megaprojects against their business objectives, from IPA’s proprietary database of industrial owners’ projects. A consultancy describing its own data; carried here because it is the only large body of private-owner project outcomes with a published headline. Read 7 September 2026.

Used onPrivate projects overrun too. The difference is who counts.

Audit Bureau of Jordan, 73rd Annual Report, for 2024

Free, Arabic, 245 pages. Chapter 8, government works tenders (report page 60), lists the Bureau’s six recurring findings on capital projects, five of them on the employer’s side: designs not checked against site before tender, contract durations miscalculated, no prior coordination with other bodies, approvals not obtained before tender, inadequate supervision, and finished projects left unoccupied. Pages 51 to 52 tabulate loan-funded projects drawn at 0% to 15% years after signing, with 8,438,134 dinars of commitment fees paid on undrawn balances in 2024, and recommend that no financing agreement be signed until studies, land, tender documents and approvals are complete. Read at those pages 7 September 2026.

Used onPrivate projects overrun too. The difference is who counts.

General Court of Audit, Saudi Arabia, Report on the results of audit work for fiscal year 2024

Free, Arabic, 46 pages, thematic and anonymised. 134 assignments; 3,687 findings on financial management of which 47% remained open; 134 findings on privatisation projects of which 84% were closed, the main ones being schedules needing to be updated and asset valuation and transfer incomplete, with a recommendation to coordinate between bodies before execution begins. Read in full 7 September 2026.

Used onPrivate projects overrun too. The difference is who counts.

General Court of Audit, Saudi Arabia, Report on the results of audit work for fiscal year 2023

Free, Arabic, 56 pages, thematic and anonymised. Findings include a transport project begun without the financial, legal and technical studies needed, raising risk and delaying it; contracts delayed for want of close follow-up of dates; contracts without performance indicators; delay in withdrawing unfinished projects from contractors and re-tendering them, which delayed new projects and raised their cost (five education-sector bodies); and guarantees not extended in time, which held up projects. Read at those pages 7 September 2026.

Used onPrivate projects overrun too. The difference is who counts.

Award rules, evaluation and payment

How a public contract is scored, awarded and settled, from the treaty down. Every one requires the weighting to be published; none says what it should be, and only the electronic auction rules specify the arithmetic.

WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, as amended 30 March 2012

Free in full at the WTO. Article X:7(c) requires the tender documentation to set out all evaluation criteria and, except where price is the sole criterion, the relative importance of those criteria. Article X:11 permits criteria to be modified before award, on written notice to all participating suppliers and with adequate time to re-submit. Article XIV(a) requires each participant in an electronic auction to be given the automatic evaluation method, including the mathematical formula. Article XV:5 awards the contract on the most advantageous tender, judged "based solely on the evaluation criteria specified in the notices and tender documentation". Read 8 September 2026.

Used onEvery award rule makes you publish the weighting. None makes you defend it.What a technical point is worth

UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement, 2011

Free in full from the United Nations, and the drafting blueprint most national procurement laws rest on. Article 11 carries the evaluation rules: 11(4), non-price criteria shall be objective, quantifiable and expressed in monetary terms "to the extent practicable"; 11(5)(c), the relative weights go in the solicitation documents; 11(6), only the disclosed criteria and procedures may be used, applied as disclosed. Article 31(1)(c) makes criteria that are quantifiable and expressible in monetary terms a precondition for an electronic reverse auction. Article 47 sets the two-envelope evaluation: 47(4)(a) technical and financial presented separately, 47(5) technical evaluated before the financial envelopes are opened, 47(7) a failing proposal has its price returned unopened, 47(8) and 47(9) each responsive bidder is told its technical score and hears every score and price read out. Article 47(10) then leaves the combination of the two unspecified. Read in full 8 September 2026.

Used onEvery award rule makes you publish the weighting. None makes you defend it.What a technical point is worth

UNCITRAL Guide to Enactment of the Model Law on Public Procurement

Free in full. The Model Law's own commentary, and the nearest thing it has to a basis for conclusions. Part two, in the section on the procuring entity's discretion: "The procuring entity also has the discretion to decide which relative weights to assign to the elements included in its evaluation criteria." Read 8 September 2026.

Used onEvery award rule makes you publish the weighting. None makes you defend it.What a technical point is worth

Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement, Article 67, contract award criteria

Free, the Official Journal text at EUR-Lex; Article 67 is in Title III, Chapter III. Article 67(4): award criteria shall not confer an unrestricted freedom of choice, shall ensure effective competition, and shall be accompanied by specifications that allow the information tenderers provide to be effectively verified; in case of doubt the authority shall verify it. Article 67(2)(b) admits the staff assigned as a criterion where their quality can have a significant impact on performance. Article 67(5) requires the relative weighting of each criterion to be specified in the procurement documents, permits it to be expressed as a range with an appropriate maximum spread, and falls back to decreasing order of importance where weighting is not possible for objective reasons; Article 67 read in full at EUR-Lex, 25 September 2026.

Used onThe score that is not a numberEvery award rule makes you publish the weighting. None makes you defend it.What a technical point is worth

Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement, Article 68, life-cycle costing

Free, the consolidated text at EUR-Lex. Article 68(1) lists the costs a life-cycle assessment covers, including acquisition, use, maintenance and end of life, and separately costs imputed to environmental externalities where their monetary value can be determined and verified. Article 68(2) requires the authority to state in the procurement documents both the data tenderers must provide and the method it will use, and sets three conditions on an externalities method: objectively verifiable and non-discriminatory criteria, accessible to all interested parties, and data obtainable with reasonable effort by a normally diligent economic operator. Article 68(3) makes a common EU method mandatory where Union legislation has made one so. What it does not do is supply a monetary value for a quality difference.

Used onEvery award rule makes you publish the weighting. None makes you defend it.

World Bank, Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, seventh edition, September 2025

Free in full, and unusually specific: Annex X paragraph 4.8 gives the lowest offered price a financial score of 100% with other prices scored inversely proportional to them; Annex X Table 2 sets quality and cost weightings of 90/10 for highly complex assignments through to 60-50/40-50 for routine work; Annex X paragraph 4.5 puts the minimum technical score at 70 to 85%. The licence permits use and reproduction for non-commercial purposes with attribution and forbids modification, so this site cites the paragraph numbers and computes from the stated rule rather than reproducing the tables.

Used onEvery award rule makes you publish the weighting. None makes you defend it.What a technical point is worth

US Department of Defense, Source Selection Procedures, USA000740-22-DPC

Free in full. Paragraph 1.3.1.4 sets out Value Adjusted Total Evaluated Price, where "the 'value' placed on better performance is identified and quantified in the RFP", allowing the team to "assign a monetary value, or 'monetize,' the higher rated technical attributes, thus taking some of the subjectivity out of the best value evaluation". The question it tells a buyer to ask itself: "what is the Government willing to pay for higher quality performance between threshold (minimum) and objective (maximum) criteria?" Paragraph 2.3.2.5 makes giving bidders that monetary value a standing instruction wherever possible. Paragraph 3.12 requires performance that earned evaluation credit to be written into the contract. Read 8 September 2026.

Used onEvery award rule makes you publish the weighting. None makes you defend it.What a technical point is worth

Federal Acquisition Regulation 15.305, Proposal evaluation

Free. Proposals are assessed solely on the factors and subfactors in the solicitation; the relative strengths, deficiencies, significant weaknesses and risks supporting the evaluation shall be documented in the contract file; the technical evaluation record must include an assessment of each offeror’s ability and a summary, matrix or ranking with supporting narrative. Read 7 September 2026, FAC 2026-01.

Used onThe score that is not a number

GAO, Bid Protest Annual Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2025, B-158766, 12 December 2025

Free. 1,688 cases filed, 380 merit decisions, 53 sustained (14%), effectiveness rate 52% counting voluntary corrective action. GAO names three most prevalent reasons for sustaining protests: unreasonable technical evaluation, unreasonable cost or price evaluation and unreasonable rejection of a proposal, numbered without a stated ranking or a count for each. Its example of the technical-evaluation ground: an agency credited an awardee with staffing for the required 11 months when it had proposed 9. Read in full 7 September 2026.

Used onThe score that is not a number

OECD, Guidelines for Fighting Bid Rigging in Public Procurement, 2025 update

Free in full as a PDF from the landing page, under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, which is a more permissive licence than most procurement guidance carries. Approved and declassified by the OECD Competition Committee on 19 June 2025. Section 2.3 is headed "Define requirements clearly and avoid predictability" and states that "Clarity should not be confused with predictability. Predictable procurement schedules and unchanging quantities sold or bought can facilitate collusion." Section 2.5 asks whether award criteria other than price can make collusion more difficult, and notes that price-based criteria suit goods whose qualitative characteristics are easily defined. The document contains no scoring formula and no weighting guidance.

Used onEvery award rule makes you publish the weighting. None makes you defend it.

Directive 2011/7/EU on combating late payment in commercial transactions

Free, Official Journal text. Article 4: where the debtor is a public authority the payment period may not exceed 30 calendar days from the invoice, 60 at most where objectively justified, and any verification procedure may not exceed 30 days. Recital 23 gives the reason: public authorities have more secure revenue and cheaper finance, so long payment periods impose unjustified costs on undertakings. Read in full 7 September 2026.

Used onThe payment chain is a loan, and the contractor is the lenderPayment chain calculator

European Commission, proposal for a Regulation on combating late payment in commercial transactions, COM(2023) 533 final

Free in full, 26 pages, the Commission’s own text. Cited for the reasoning rather than the rule, because it is a PROPOSAL AND NOT LAW: the European Parliament’s Legislative Train Schedule, read 7 September 2026 and dated 1 August 2026, records the file as "Blocked" with the Council as the blocking institution; Parliament adopted its position in March 2024 and the Council could not progress it. Directive 2011/7/EU remains the instrument in force. What it supplies is the Commission’s own account of the mechanism. The explanatory memorandum: "For debtors, paying late is an attractive form of finance that costs the debtor nothing but does have a cost for the creditor", and "it is very administratively burdensome for smaller companies, or companies with a weaker market position, to obtain financing at a cost that factors in their level of risk". Recital 3: "Late payments directly affect liquidity and predictability of cash flows, thus increasing working capital needs and compromising a company’s access to external financing. This affects competitiveness, reduces productivity, leads to redundancies, increases the likelihood of insolvencies and bankruptcies and is a critical barrier for growth. The damaging effects of late payments spread along supply chains, as the payment delay is often passed onto suppliers." Recital 11 adds that late payment "is financially attractive to debtors, due to low or no interest rates charged on late payment, or slow procedures for redress". Read 7 September 2026.

Used onThe payment chain is a loan, and the contractor is the lender

Tyson, FIDIC 1999 Red Book, Clause 14 Contract Price and Payment, clause commentary, International Construction Knowledge Hub

Free. This commentary quotes the periods and, more usefully, what starts and stops them. The Engineer has 28 days to issue an Interim Payment Certificate "which states the amount the Engineer fairly determines to be due", so a statement is not thrown out because parts of it are disputed; the disputed part is trimmed and the rest certified. Sub-Clause 14.7 requires payment "within 56 days from the date the Engineer receives the Statement AND supporting documents", and the commentary states plainly that "the trigger for payment is the Engineer’s receipt of the Statement and supporting documentation", so an incomplete submission has not started the clock. Certification may be withheld only where the amount falls below the minimum in the Appendix to Tender, where work is not in accordance with the Contract (and then only the cost of rectification), or until the Employer has received and approved the Performance Security. Once issued, the Employer "must make payment in full, irrespective of any entitlement to compensation arising from any claim", which goes separately under 2.5. Financing charges run from the due date (14.8) and the Guidance offers 42 days as the alternative. It also states that longer payment periods raise contractors’ financing costs and their prices. Read 7 September 2026.

Used onThe payment chain is a loan, and the contractor is the lenderPayment chain calculator

FIDIC, Contracts: advanced questions, Construction, Plant and EPCT 1999 contracts, question and answer service

Free, and FIDIC answering on its own contracts, which makes it a primary statement rather than a commentary on one. On the payment period: "the Employer shall pay to the Contractor the amount certified in each Interim Payment Certificate within 56 days after the Engineer receives the Statement and supporting documents", so the trigger is receipt of both, not the contractor’s dispatch. On late payment: the contractor "is entitled to receive financing charges compounded monthly on the amount unpaid during the period of delay", the period "shall be deemed to commence on the date for payment specified in Sub-Clause 14.7, irrespective ... of the date on which any Interim Payment Certificate is issued", the charges run at "three percentage points above the discount rate of the central bank in the country of the currency of payment" unless the Particular Conditions say otherwise, and the contractor is entitled to them "without formal notice or certification". Suspension under 16.1 and termination under 16.2 follow. On the minimum: before the Taking-Over Certificate "the Engineer may decline to issue an Interim Payment Certificate in an amount which would be less than a minimum amount of Interim Payment Certificates stated in the Appendix to Tender", while quoting its own Contracts Guide that "the Engineer should not regard his duty as being to endeavor to minimize certification". Read 7 September 2026.

Used onThe payment chain is a loan, and the contractor is the lender

Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), policy rates on the bank’s own front page

Free. Read on 7 September 2026: Repo Rate 4.25% and Reverse Repo Rate 3.75%, both carrying the date December 2025, which is when they last moved rather than when they were read. The riyal peg shows on the same page at 3.7500 to the dollar. The point for this publication is what is NOT there: SAMA publishes a repo rate and a reverse repo rate and no rate called a discount rate. FIDIC Sub-Clause 14.8 sets late payment financing charges at "three percentage points above the discount rate of the central bank in the country of the currency of payment", so on a riyal contract the default formula names an instrument the relevant central bank does not publish under that name, and the parties have to agree the mapping or say so in the Particular Conditions. On the repo it is 7.25%, on the reverse repo 6.75%.

Used onThe payment chain is a loan, and the contractor is the lender

National Infrastructure Fund (Infra), Contractor Financing Program, Saudi Arabia

Free, the fund’s own programme page. A sovereign credit-support instrument for contractors: Infra covers up to 50% of partner banks’ facilities under specific contracts, stated as de-risking lender exposure, with the objective of incentivising the banking sector to finance contracting companies. Eligibility is aggregate revenue of 300m riyals over the past two fiscal years, at least 3 years of operations, a Nitaqat rating of Medium Green or higher and Ministry of Municipalities and Housing classification; the target is contractors on national projects valued between 200m and 1.25bn riyals. It publishes no rate. Cited for what its existence evidences, which is that contractor working capital on public projects needed a state instrument, not for a cost of money. Read 7 September 2026.

Used onThe payment chain is a loan, and the contractor is the lender

Executive Regulations for Human Resources in the Civil Service, Saudi Arabia, Article 127

Free in full, Arabic, 67 pages, published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development. Article 127 sets the official holidays for civil servants: the weekly rest is Friday and Saturday; National Day is the first day of Libra, 23 September, and Founding Day 22 February, each with a stated substitution if it falls on a Friday or Saturday, as amended by Ministerial Decision 109878 of 9/7/1444; and the Eid holidays run from the 25th of Ramadan to the end of the 5th of Shawwal, and from the 5th of Dhu al-Hijjah to the end of the 15th. Article 128 adds that a single working day falling between two official holidays is itself a holiday. Read 7 September 2026.

Used onThe payment chain is a loan, and the contractor is the lenderPayment chain calculator

Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, Holidays and Leaves, Labour Law entitlements

Free, the ministry’s own labour education page, tagged “business sector” and written throughout of “the worker”, so it states the private sector entitlement. A 4-day Eid al-Fitr holiday beginning the day after 29 Ramadan on the Umm Al-Qura calendar, a 4-day Eid al-Adha holiday beginning on Arafat day, and the National Day on the first day of Libra with substitution if it falls at the weekend. Authored 15 November 2019. Read 7 September 2026. Set beside Article 127 of the civil service regulations it shows two different holiday regimes reaching two different steps of the same payment chain.

Used onThe payment chain is a loan, and the contractor is the lenderPayment chain calculator

Assurance, audit and readiness

What independent examination is supposed to look like, from the internal audit standards to the gate a project must pass before anyone has to operate it. Two of these are free in full and unusually candid about their own limits: GAGAS puts establishing the criteria on the auditor, and INTOSAI says its own question set is a menu to be completed. The first two answer a prior question, which is what a document has to do before it can be called a standard at all: ANSI sets ten due-process criteria, and ASHRAE’s own procedures show how one body applies them to standards and guidelines alike. The two GAO reports on the federal IT Dashboard are the only public record we know of where an auditor re-rated a set of self-assessed risk ratings and published both columns. The three defence real property reports, 1993, 2003 and 2020, are the same auditor finding the same unreconciled construction-in-progress balance across 27 years, and the 2025 report records that the department has still never received a clean opinion.

ANSI Essential Requirements: Due process requirements for American National Standards

Free, 30 pages, and ANSI permits copying if the text is unaltered and its copyright noted. Section 1.0 defines due process and sets the ten requirements; 2.1 makes the consensus body’s roster available on request; 2.3 gives the historical balance criteria; 3.2.2 bars an ANS from requiring the purchase of copyrighted material; 4.4 governs the designation. None of it concerns the price of the finished document. Read in full 6 September 2026.

Used onAmerican National Standard

GAO, Financial Management: Army Real Property Accounting and Reporting Weaknesses Impede Management Decision-making, GAO/AIMD-94-9, November 1993

Free in full; the text is on govinfo.gov. On the Army’s fiscal year 1992 statements: a 3.6bn unreconciled difference between ledger and facilities system, 134 completed projects with 276m still in construction in progress, and the Corps not reconciling accounting records with engineer records.

Used onThe certified value and the booked value are two different records

GAO, Defense Real Property: DOD-Wide Strategy Needed to Address Control Issues and Improve Reliability of Records, GAO-20-615, September 2020

Free in full, 43 pages. Pages 13 to 15 report the fiscal year 2019 independent auditors’ findings that the Army, Navy and Air Force could not reconcile real property systems to financial reporting systems, and page 14 states what a reconciliation is and how often DoD policy requires it.

Used onThe project crosswalk reaches capitalisation. What survives it?The certified value and the booked value are two different records

Commissioning

The one assurance requirement in this field with a published payback. Both LBNL studies are free in full, limitations included, and LEED v4’s prerequisite text says exactly who may run the process. LEED v5 (November 2025 edition) is free in full and is what the commissioning tool now computes by default; on who may serve as the provider it defers to ASHRAE 90.1, and the tool says so where that happens. The process standards were listed on this site as sold until 4 September 2026, which was wrong about NFPA: it opens both of its commissioning standards in full to anyone with a free account, read-only. The ASHRAE pair stay off this page. Guideline 0 is sold outright, and Standard 202 is listed on an ASHRAE preview page whose link is gated to referrals and arrives at a purchase page, which is a listing rather than publication. Free to read is also not free to use here: NFPA’s licence permits viewing and excludes derivative works. A stronger claim about ASHRAE and AI stood on this page for one day and was withdrawn: it was taken from a banner on ashrae.org rather than the board-approved policy behind it, which is scoped to ASHRAE’s own people and to documents not meant for public release.

Contracts and the periods that follow completion

Four regimes set four different clocks running from the day a building is finished. The standard forms are cited through each body’s own published commentary on its own clauses, alongside one procurement law that is free in full. That law is in transition: a new Government Tenders and Procurement Law was gazetted on 4 September 2026 and takes effect about 2 January 2027, with new Regulations to follow; the date tools say so and compute from the law in force until then.

Executive Regulations of the Government Tenders and Procurement Law

Free in full. Article 127 sets the receipt procedure, 128 a warranty period of not less than one year, 99 the ten-year liability, and 109 the payment chain. Note that the 2007 regulations of the superseded 2006 law are still hosted on the same site and number these provisions differently. Searched in the Arabic on 7 September 2026 for a late payment remedy: فائدة and فوائد, interest, appear zero times in the 117 pages of the law and its regulations. What exists instead is the claims route under Article 68 of the Law: the contractor files within 60 days of the event, the consultant reports within 21 days of a COMPLETE claim, the agency studies within 45, the committee under Article 86 decides within 45 of a complete claim, compensation is capped at 20% of the contract value and anything beyond that goes to the Administrative Court. So the contractor must initiate, evidence and win, where FIDIC 14.8 accrues charges automatically and without notice. Article 108, immediately before the payment chain, is the offset and was read in the Arabic on 7 September 2026: يجوز, may, not shall, the government authority MAY disburse an advance payment not exceeding 10% of the total contract value, against a bank guarantee equal to it, recovered from the contractor’s dues in instalments at a percentage equal to the advance percentage, from the value of each certificate, starting with the first. So the advance is discretionary, capped, costs a guarantee fee, and amortises to zero across the contract rather than standing as a buffer.

Used onThe score that is not a numberEvery award rule makes you publish the weighting. None makes you defend it.The payment chain is a loan, and the contractor is the lenderWhat follows the certificate, and whenWarranty register builderPayment chain calculatorWhat a technical point is worth

Saudi Government Tenders and Procurement Law and its Executive Regulations, consolidated Arabic text, third edition

Free in full, in Arabic, from the Ministry of Finance: each article of the 2019 Law printed beside the regulations that implement it, 117 pages. The enacted text on securities and receipt. Law Article 61(1) sets the final guarantee at 5% of the contract value within 15 working days of notice of the award, and 61(4) keeps it until the contractor has performed its obligations and the project is finally received. Regulations Article 101 requires the final guarantee to be extended in construction contracts where maintenance and warranty work runs «لما بعد انتهاء سنة الضمان المشار إليه في الفقرة (1) من المادة (الثامنة والعشرين بعد المائة)»; Article 111 pays a final statement of not less than 10% in public construction contracts after initial receipt; Article 128 sets a warranty period of not less than one year from initial receipt, keeps the warranty for shortcomings not dealt with at initial receipt, and makes final receipt follow the end of that period and the delivery of drawings, equipment specifications and project documents.

Used onThe score that is not a numberTaking overPunch listWhat follows the certificate, and whenWarranty register builderAsset lifecycle method

Saudi model contract for public construction works, as hosted on the Etimad platform, Arabic

Free, in Arabic. The form a government entity fills in. Clause 69 fixes the final guarantee at 5% of the contract value, keeps it until the contractor has performed its obligations and handed the works over finally, and allows it to be extended where maintenance and warranty work runs late; clause 70 governs the extension. Clause 5 of the financial conditions allows up to 10% of each payment statement to be withheld to form a final statement not exceeding 10% of the contract value.

Held, not yet used

Government Tenders and Procurement Law, new law published in Umm Al-Qura 22/3/1448 (4 September 2026), Arabic

Free in full, 101 articles, in the Official Gazette. Article 100 replaces Royal Decree M/128 (1440); Article 101 brings it into force 120 days after publication; Article 99 requires new Executive Regulations within the same period. Article 2 names life cycle cost, execution quality, operational efficiency and risk management among the law’s objectives. Article 59, read on 25 September 2026, keeps the final guarantee at 5% of the contract value, lodged within 15 working days of notice of the award and held until the contractor has performed its obligations and the project is finally received. Read on 5 September 2026.

Used onThe score that is not a numberEvery award rule makes you publish the weighting. None makes you defend it.The payment chain is a loan, and the contractor is the lenderWhat follows the certificate, and whenWarranty register builderPayment chain calculatorWhat a technical point is worthAsset lifecycle method

Jordan Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Unified Construction Contract for Construction Projects 2010, second amended edition 2013, Arabic

Free, in Arabic, as issued with a tender of the Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship, 128 pages: instructions to tenderers, general conditions on FIDIC’s numbering, particular conditions, appendix to tender and forms. Instructions to tenderers 5-2 require a defects remedy guarantee of 5% of the final value of the completed works when the Taking-Over Certificate is received, and return the performance security when it is lodged. Particular Conditions 4.2 allow the performance security instead to be reduced to 5% after taking over. General Conditions 14.9 certify half the retention at taking over and the balance after the last Defects Notification Period. The percentages in the appendix to tender are that tender’s.

Used onTaking overPunch list

Jordan, Instructions Organising Government Procurement Procedures 2022, Official Gazette No. 5772, Arabic

Free, the Official Gazette pages from 1423, hosted by Mutah University. Issued under Government Procurement Regulation No. 8 of 2022. Article 15(c) requires a performance security of not less than 10% where the purchase documents require one; Article 15(d) requires a maintenance security for supplies that need it, or a defects remedy liability security for works, of 3% to 5% of the actual contract value after completion; Article 17(b) returns the performance security after the contract has been performed in full, on written request, once the receipt record has been matched to the contract and the required securities have been lodged.

Held, not yet used

Delay, notice and extensions of time

Four English judgments and one piece of professional guidance. The judgments are published free in full by The National Archives under the Open Justice Licence, and they state English law. The Society of Construction Law’s Delay and Disruption Protocol is free to download; it is guidance rather than law, and it says itself that it gives way to the contract and the governing law.

Public sector accounting

IPSAS ships its Basis for Conclusions in the same free document as the standard, which is the practice this page quietly wishes on everybody else.

IPSAS 45, property, plant and equipment

Free in full, with its Basis for Conclusions in the same document. Replaced IPSAS 17 from 1 January 2025.

Used onWhat capital figures record, and what they leave elsewhereThe project crosswalk reaches capitalisation. What survives it?The certified value and the booked value are two different recordsThe evidence finance needs is in a file finance never seesA lighting pole in the desert is not an assetCounting desks while the useful life goes unexaminedA lifecycle ratio nobody can check, and a conclusion that does not need itThe date a project becomes an asset is not the date on the certificateIPSAS 45Useful lifeCapital work in progressAsset register packageTurnover package composerThree lives for the same assetComponentisation calculatorAsset lifecycle method

Saudi Ministry of Finance, comprehensive manual for the census and valuation of assets of government entities, Arabic

Free, in Arabic only. Section 5.2, pages 78 to 152, prints the classification of non-current assets with a capitalisation threshold and a minimum, maximum and default useful life for each asset type. Page 76 asks each entity to set its lives within the published range, taking account of the manufacturer, the use and the expected benefit, and to submit them to the central committee for approval. English asset names on this site are a Projects Advisors translation.

Used onWhat capital figures record, and what they leave elsewhereThe project crosswalk reaches capitalisation. What survives it?Accrual conversion gave three years. It did not give anyone a register.Three lives for the same assetComponentisation calculatorAsset lifecycle method

Two documents this publication names are not linked here: the FIDIC conditions of contract and the PMBOK Guide. Both are named in full wherever they are used, and where the writing relies on FIDIC it cites the published clause commentary it read, which is listed below.

Correspondence

If something here is wrong, that is worth more than agreement.

Material errors are corrected on the affected pages. Messages are used to reply, not to build a mailing list.

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