In our recent online poll we asked whether the Olympic Delivery Authority is right to use the NEC. A massive 87% of you said no. Roxane McMeeken put this to David Higgins, ceo of the ODA, which appointed the CLM consortium as delivery partner last month. He told us:

“We are using a modified version of NEC 3 for the delivery partner contract. We won’t rely on the document to form our relationship with the delivery partner because using it would point to a breakdown in the relationship.

There has been no decision on whether we will use it for the rest of the programme. We are aware that the document is skewed towards civil and infrastructure work. In line with this we have modified the contract, particularly in terms of performance management. The modifications were agreed on with the delivery partner during the selection as part of the competitive dialogue.

It was seen as the best existing contract. Its entire structure is driven around openess and transparency. I don’t want to have to rely on traditional processes.

The delivery partner is our partner and we have the right to terminate the partnership, modify the scope of the work and determine the key performance indicators.

An incentive agreement will be worked out between the ODA and the delivery partner during a 90 day period (which started last week). The amount of money has been agreed but the KPIs are to come. They will based on the usual things – money, time – but also other things like sustainability and health & safety. They will be judged at the end of the project but also on a yearly basis.

The key thing about the NEC contract is that it can be terminated and we can vary its scope.”

Source

QS News