NEC student dissertation

Dear all,

Another student survey if you have a few minutes to spare please. In the student's own words....

I am undertaking a Masters' Degree in Surveying (Quantity Surveying and Construction Management route) at the College of Estate Management as part of my final dissertation and the Sir Ian Dixon Award for the Chartered Institute of Building; I am researching the question of whether the NEC3 contract has met its aim in delivering client satisfaction.

I am trying to understand and describe what client satisfaction looks like to a wide selection of major clients that use the NEC3 contracts.

I would be grateful if you would kindly complete the attached questionnaire. All information given will be treated with strict confidence and I will be happy to share a copy of the summary of results.

Thanks,

Rob

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=M5kN9_2fqwOn4_2b9x_2fBc97aHQ_3d_3d

The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act - NEC3 September 2011 Amendments

The UK’s Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 has introduced amendments to the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (the ‘Construction Act’), requiring a number of changes to NEC3 contracts. The changes are published on the NEC web site for free download by users on the following link.

http://www.neccontract.com/amendments.asp

The amendments to the Construction Act apply to all construction contracts in England and Wales from 1 October and those in Scotland from 1 November. They are likely to apply to contracts in Northern Ireland in the future.

The resulting NEC3 changes are in two areas: adjudication and payment. In the Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC), Engineering and Construction Subcontract (ECS), Professional Service Contract (PSC) and Term Service Contract (TSC) this is effected through revisions to clause W2 and Y(UK)2.

An additional clause is provided in the short forms, namely the Engineering and Construction Short Contract, Engineering and Construction Short Subcontract and Term Service Short Contract. The changes are summarised below.

Changes to adjudication provisions

The provision allowing for correction of slips has been revised to comply with the new statutory requirements. This has affected the timing of the correction as well as the wording of what can be corrected.

It is now no longer permissible to allocate fees and expenses of an adjudication equally between the parties through the contract. The adjudicator must be given the right to allocate them. The Act has also fixed the timing of any payment due following an adjudication decision, which has required a further change.

Changes to payment provisions

Under ECC, ECS and TSC, a payment certificate and details of how the payment was calculated must be issued together and defined as a payment notice. If the project manager fails to give a payment notice, the contractor may give the notice. Under short forms and the PSC, there is no certificate so the contractor/consultant’s submission will constitute the payment notice.

In all forms, the timing of issue of the payment notice must be fixed as not later than 5 days after the payment due date. The amount stated in the payment notice must be paid unless a notice of intention to pay less is issued. The arrangement is superficially similar to the withholding notice, but terminology and timing are different.

As the Act now requires payment to be made for suspending performance for non-payment, the short forms have also been amended to include this as a compensation event to ensure the assessment is carried out as for other events.

NEC & BIM

A few people have asked 'is there going to be an NEC compliant BIM contract (or amends) in time'? The answer is at the moment there are no amends being drafted, nor do we see them being required. Of course things may change as BIM develops.

NEC has representation with the UK Governments' BIM implementation group where, amongst other things, the group is discussing liability, negligence, deliverables, copyright, IPR and so on. NEC will input into this group by monitoring/reviewing/advising and looking over the protocol the group is writing.

From my perspective and in simple terms, BIM is a design process based on a common platform. It it appears that BIM is in no way intended to change the current liabilities structure that we have - in time we may have integrated project insurance (IPI) but IPI isn't BIM and vice versa.

From an NEC perspective therefore, if such a process (protocol) is required then the requirements to work to this should rightly be in the Works Information (ECC) or the Scope (PSC). The biggest issue with BIM seems to be data supply and current thinking is that this could comfortably be accommodated through a mixture of key dates and sectional completion.

Rob

Student NEC research

Dear all,

Please spare a bit of time to complete the attached survey for a masters student doing a dissertation on NEC3 ECC Option C.

Many thanks,
Rob

www.surveymonkey.co.uk/nec3

The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act

I'd like the job of naming Acts of Parliament......!

Anyway, as an update to a previous Blog, The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 contains a substantial number of provisions in the broad areas of local democracy and involvement, local authority governance and audit, boundary and electoral change, local and regional economic development and construction contracts. It received Royal Assent on 12 November 2009. Part 8 of the Act amends the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 to improve payment practices and dispute resolution in the construction industry. The new Act is apparently to be in force from 1 October this year and NEC drafters are busy finishing off necessary amendments to the applicable NEC3 Contracts and these will be available during September 2011.

Rob

Claimsmanship or fraud?

When I was a jobbing QS on my first contract in civils, a game appeared to be going on. This was replicated everywhere that I could see/hear about, and still seems to be going on a little bit today. Where a Contractor had a 'claim' he would eventually apply for additional time and/or money. Let's concentrate on the time bit. Word was that the independent impartial engineer would subsequently slice this by about 2/3 so guess what the Contractor did? Ramped it up accordingly of course. Client-side QS's also were issued with red pens in that era, what did we do with them? Use them of course to knock down star rate items the Contractor asked for in his application for additional works. So what, where am I rambling off to....

I read a really interesting article from a UK lawyer a while back (which I simply cannot find nor recall who, when etc) in which he suggested that asking for even 1 penny more than you knew you were due constituted fraud - how very interesting! I wonder how many surveyors (and perhaps other disciplines) have asked for more money than they knew they were entitled to? This of course would be a criminal offence and should therefore be taken extremely seriously.

So, any support or dissent to the notion that (and this might make quite an interesting dissertation) deliberately claiming even a penny more than you know you are entitled to constitutes fraud?

Answers on a postcard please......

Rob

NEC suite replaces ICE CoC

Hi,

Reported in the Construction Index just is that the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) has formally transferred its part ownership of the ICE Conditions of Contract that it developed 66 years ago to the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA). ACE and CECA have now launched a new standard suite of forms of contract based on the former ICE Conditions of Contract, called the Infrastructure Conditions of Contract.

In an age where we seem to be thankfully and at long last to be heading away from the Dark Ages and towards the post-Latham collaboration era, it will be interesting to see how the newly badged contract fares. Good luck to them, but presumably the upkeep/investment from ACE/CECA subscribing members will be justified and someone in the industry is actually crying out for this?

Answers on a postcard please..........

Rob

http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/construction-news/infrastructure-contract-suite-replaces-ice-coc