Scenario under NEC PSC:
Consultant has been delayed in delivering design package by three weeks. Root cause of delay is a simple failure to timeously transfer files between themselves and a sub consultant (duration of delay is excessive and more than likely representative of failure to notice and manage the issue rather than a fair estimate of time to resolve). Consultant has submitted a CE (time only) under Cl 60.1(11).
Proposed approach:
Overall (project) programme has sufficient float to deal with delay to design (owing to seasonal construction window) and therefore pursuing the Consultant to recover delay is not strictly necessary.
However, CE should still be rejected as cause of delay was certainly foreseeable. Also important from a precedent perspective as consultant regularly (across a framework) tries to use 60.1(11) as a catch-all for any delays not attributable to the defined CEs.
Questions:
1. Is there a better way to approach this such that (a) we comply with contract, (b) we acknowledge that delay is not a critical issue and (c) we ensure that we don't create precedent (in an operating rather than legal sense) for how future events which may be time critical are dealt with?
2. What should the consultant submit on their programme i.e. if, as they claim, there is zero float (within the design programme) and no opportunity to accelerate other activities should they proceed to issue a programme with proposed Completion exceeding the agreed Completion Date?
Consultant has been delayed in delivering design package by three weeks. Root cause of delay is a simple failure to timeously transfer files between themselves and a sub consultant (duration of delay is excessive and more than likely representative of failure to notice and manage the issue rather than a fair estimate of time to resolve). Consultant has submitted a CE (time only) under Cl 60.1(11).
Proposed approach:
Overall (project) programme has sufficient float to deal with delay to design (owing to seasonal construction window) and therefore pursuing the Consultant to recover delay is not strictly necessary.
However, CE should still be rejected as cause of delay was certainly foreseeable. Also important from a precedent perspective as consultant regularly (across a framework) tries to use 60.1(11) as a catch-all for any delays not attributable to the defined CEs.
Questions:
1. Is there a better way to approach this such that (a) we comply with contract, (b) we acknowledge that delay is not a critical issue and (c) we ensure that we don't create precedent (in an operating rather than legal sense) for how future events which may be time critical are dealt with?
2. What should the consultant submit on their programme i.e. if, as they claim, there is zero float (within the design programme) and no opportunity to accelerate other activities should they proceed to issue a programme with proposed Completion exceeding the agreed Completion Date?