The Contractor is submitting programmes at the required intervals however these programmes have a “progresses to” date which pre-dates the submission date by 2 weeks.
This is an A-road dialling scheme with 16 months remaining and 2000 activities to complete.
The PM is stating that the 2-week “lag” date is unreasonable and that the programme programmes should be submitted within 1 week of the “progressed to” date. Accordingly the PM is not accepting the programmes as they are not reflect the Contractors plans realistically by virtue of the 2 week lag between submission and “progressed to” date. The PM is saying that by the time it comes to reviewing progress on the submission which could be 3 weeks after submission then people’s memories aren’t what they could be compared to if the review was undertaken within 2 weeks.
In your opinion in this case is 2 weeks too long or is it to be expected?
I would agree with the Project Manager that submitting a programme with the only actual data being two weeks old is far too long. If I was that Contractor I would be expecting to bring everything up to date on the date of submission. This can be done progressively during the month so does not need to be a big update on the day of submission.
I would not accept it for one of two reasons - doesn’t reflect the Contractors plans realistically (if progress has not been what the programme shows in past two weeks) or that it doesn’t show the information requires. Clause 32.1 requires that the Contractor shows actual progress achieved and the effects upon the remaining works - which the Contractor is unlikely to be doing here for the last two weeks worth of activities (unless everything is going to plan).
Big issue for a Contractor to not have a regularly accepted programme - so they should do what ever it takes to get that programme accepted, and I don’t think the PM is being unreasonable here.
In future you could state in Works Information that the Contractor has to submit a programme with a data date (progress date) the same date as submission which would avoid any misconception on the Contractors part of their obligations/expectations.