The NEC show

To ensure contract works proceed economically and safely, it is wise to plan what resources are going to be used.

On simple projects, these plans can be illustrated by means of a horizontal-progress bar chart. More complex projects require sophisticated planning. Thus techniques such as project networking and line of balance have evolved.

Programming illustrates how one activity’s start and finish date can be shown to be dependent on another activity’s start and finish date, enabling use of network planning.

The NEC main contract or subcontract lists 12 components of an acceptable contract-works programme: starting dates, access dates, key dates, sectional completion dates, float, provision for risk, completion dates and planned completion dates, the order and timing of the works, time-risk allowances, health and safety requirements, (sub)contract requirements and information required dates.

Failure to accord with the above requires the contractor or project manager to withhold a quarter of the next interim payment. This facility is relinquished only when a corrected submission is accepted.

The list is punitive because it demands a level of planning and programming seldom seen in the construction subcontracting industry and one that serves as a useful checklist for compliance.

Starting date

Confusingly, this is not an indication of when the works are due to start on site. In the NEC, ‘starting date’ refers to the period that design may start or that initial site set-up outside ‘working areas’ is permitted.

With much being made of the need to prefabricate products, starting date can also indicate that manufacture of products or components can start. Contract conditions will need to be reviewed to establish whether secondary option X14 (payment for materials off site) has been brought into the contract.

Access date

The NEC contract states that the contractor is not permitted to start work on site until the first access date. The contract data may schedule other access dates where phased commencement would be required, for example, during the refurbishment of flats where tenants move from the old to the new.

Key dates

NEC 3 differentiates between areas that must be made ready for others to work in and matters of sectional completion.

To illustrate, a concrete plinth that must be constructed in time for the delivery and installation of mechanical plant is best controlled by specifying the plant installation deadline date.

Whether the date of installation is the key date or whether the date by which the concrete will have achieved its designed strength is the deciding factor is left as a matter for the parties to decide.

The list is punitive in so far as it demands a level of planning and programming expertise seldom seen in the subcontractor industry

The project manager or contractor is not required to certify that a key date has been met. However, failure to meet a key date is punished by the imposition of damages by way of the recovery of a stated sum.

Sectional completion date

Sectional completion is included in an NEC contract when secondary option X5 is selected. Section three of the NEC form refers to part of the works and, although not defined, readers should have no difficulty managing a ‘contract within a contract’. A review of the enquiry document will disclose whether secondary option X7, liquidated and ascertained damages, will be incorporated.

Completion date and planned completion date

Contractors are required to ‘do the works’ to enable completion on or before a certain date.

While the programme envisaged by the requirements that are listed above presupposes a rate-of-progress obligation, none is explicitly stated in the contract.

In addition, the programme does enable the contractor to show completion before his contracted date.

Health and safety clauses

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations require that the employer allows sufficient time at the project’s commencement for installation and commissioning of standard preliminary items: offices, toilets (male, female, physically disabled) and canteens.

Temporary works such as extensive scaffolding should also be included.

Information required date

The JCT contract can be drafted to make the architect accountable for slow release of information. This is why the standard form’s sixth part is seldom used.

The NEC compensation events conspicuously omit the late supply of information, deferring to “late provision of specified things”.

While the employer would be in default if the architect, via the project manager, failed to produce the information scheduled on the accepted programme, general principles of law would provide for the contractor to be able to mitigate his losses.

He would be obliged to establish a mechanism whereby he requests information close to the information-required time.