Cleaning Equipment Following a Change to the WI

We are operating under the NEC ECC3 option C contract.

Following a response to the COVID-19 pandemic the Project Manager changed the WI to include more intensive cleaning of the excavators and the general working area cabins with more regularity.

Ordinarily I would class the cleaning Equipment as either part of the charges in section 44 of the SoCC’s or the Fee. However, would the definition of Equipment in 11.2 (7) now not mean it is recoverable via section 25 of the SoCC’s?

Clauses 11.2 (13) & 20.1 have also been considered when trying to think of the answer to this question.

I am also cognisant of the phrase at the start of section 2 of the SoCC’s that removes Equipment included in the WAO. Which again is why I would ordinarily put these costs in section 44, however, the sheer quantity of cleaning Equipment now required is over and above the quantity that was taken into account at tender when calculating the WAO percentage, so i do not see how the extra cleaning Equipment can fall under this statement.

It sounds like you have already thought this matter through and concluded that it is difficult to know how to assess the value. Although it may be clear that a matter is a compensation event, the corresponding assessment is not always straightforward, as you have highlighted.

The nature of the charge for overhead costs incurred within the Working Areas (WAO) has caused much debate, including such issues as to whether a wheelbarrow is a hand tool or an item of lifting Equipment.

In your case it seems like the cleaning equipment would be covered by the WAO charge. You don’t say how the cleaning / sanitation is being dealt with, that is whether it is being provided as a service or split between the various cost components, such as People and Equipment. If the latter then it would be reasonable to price for the additional People time, but the associated Equipment would be a WAO charge.

If that is not how this matter has been treated previously, then perhaps consider this for the compensation event scope which means that you would recover the People cost and add a WAO charge to this as part of the assessment.