NEC3: Should a CE be put together with a view when the impact occured or at the point of accessment. NEC3 Option C

NEC3 and NEC4 Contracts Compensation Events
1

An event (client delay) has happen in Feb 15 which has had an impact on the critical path moving the planned completion from Mid July to Mid September. A EW has been raised but no NCE has been raised or PMI issued at this point. The CE was then assessed in June by the contractor (The lateness of assessment was due to the event evolving and was agreed between client & contractor to wait until the event become more clear and the correct solution could be used for the assessment, rightly or wrongly).

During this time between the event and the actual assessment ( Feb to June) some of the normal works dates, which was the previous critical path back in Feb was delayed until the end of Aug but still remained non critical (Contractors delay).

The two questions I have are

  1. Should the assessment be made as in everything forward of the event date (Feb) is a forecast or the forecasting should be from the point of the assessment (June) ?

  2. Does the delay of the normal works (non critical) have an effect on the prelim cost or is this just using the total float created by client delay event.

Thanks

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2

28th January 2015
Question 1
The assessment of the time effects should be made in accordance with clause 63.3 which states “A delay to the Completion Date is assessed as the length of time that, DUE TO THE COMPENSATION EVENT, planned Completion is later than planned Completion as shown on the Accepted programme.” Current industry best practice involves the following steps:

  1. Identify the Accepted programme that was in place at the time the event occurred.
  2. Update this programme for actual progress up to the date that the event occurred.(February 2015).
  3. Insert the compensation event activities into this programme.
    The change in the planned Completion due to the compensation event is the difference between planned Completion after step 2 and step 3. Any Contractor delays that happen after February 2015 are not relevant to this assessment. So assuming the planned Completion Date of mid July included progress up to the point of the compensation event then the delay due to the compensation event will be assessed as 2months (Mid July to Mid September).

Question 2
If the delay to “normal works” happened after the compensation event then it should be ignored in the assessment of the compensation event. When assessing time effects it is very important to deal with matters one at a time in a chronological order.
If the compensation event creates float in the programme then that float is then available to whoever gets there first.

I’ve made every effort to answer the questions based on the information provided. But, if I’ve missed the point, or not answered your question fully, please don’t hesitate to ask for further information.

Regards,
Dave Parkinson