We are entering into an ECI on an NEC4 and the X22 wording has been amended to accommodate enabling works as part of the stage 1.
Guidance whether the amending X22 is acceptable considering;
Early Contractor involvement (used only with Options C and E) The Z clauses previously published by the ICE for early contractor involvement in 2015 have now been directly incorporated as a new secondary option. ECI permits the Client to appoint the Contractor at an early stage to input into the design process to innovate and eliminate risks to achieve better cost and time certainty for the works. However, this does not provide a framework for instructing enabling works, which would need to be done under a separate enabling works contract.
Please can you clarify the question you are asking Gary as it isn’t clear? The best answer I can give based on what you’ve written is that it depends on the wording of the amendments that were made to X22.
As Neil said above, it is not clear what you are asking.
If your question is along the lines of whether an amendment to a standard clause by the Client is ‘acceptable’, then the answer will be yes, providing the other party agrees to it (and subject to any law that would make any resulting clause void).
X22 wouldn’t need to be amended to incorporate enabling works in Stage 1, this is already provided for if the term “Stage 1” as defined in the Scope includes a requirement for the Contractor to carry out enabling works.
The use of X22 with the ECC is intended to avoid the need for the Client to procure multiple contracts for design, enabling works and main works. The Client needs to carefully consider how it defines Stage 1 and Stage 2 in the Scope and also how both stages will priced by the Contractor.