By accepting a programme can it be deemed that the sectional completion date change is accepted to avoid LDs or do you have to submit a CE
By accepting a programme you are not accepting the principle of a compensation event or the effect of a compensation event. The Contractor should not be moving either the sectional Completion Date or the Completion Date until the compensation event itself has been “implemented” which means agreed in terms of time/cost.
This is why the contract requires that the Contractor shows an equivalent “planned Completion” of both a sectional and the overall completion of the works. In the example you give above, the Contractor should have showed the effects of the compensation event by moving “planned sectional Completion Date”. The original and separate “sectional Completion Date” stays where it is until the effects are agreed through the compensation event process. The programme therefore is capturing the reality of the effects of the change and can therefore become the Accepted Programme, but the liability will be captured separately through the agreement of the compensation event itself. If the CE is implemented with an agreed time effect of one week, then at that point you can move the sectional Completion Date milestone on the programme which will hopefully now catch up with the equivalent planned Date of that milestone.
If a Contractors planned Sectional Completion is beyond that of the Sectional Completion Date on an Accepted Programme it either means they are running late and is their liability, or there are unimplemented compensation events that have yet to be fully assessed.