Issue of GC to add an additional scope against existing scope of an EI

Hi, would you be able to answer whether an issue of GC will be appropriate or not to add further scope for an existing EI (e.g. Employer needs to add further design against his existing EI). What will be the risk of doing this, rather than issue of an additional EI.

Hi, not sure what an EI is but I am assuming that there is an NEC4 contract of some sort in place, and I presume a GC is General Communication under an electronic communication system as described in clause 13.2?

Changes to the Scope can only be instructed by whomever is authorised under the contract to do so, i.e. ECC it would be the PM under clause 14.3.

An instruction can be given in any written format, email, text message, etc. see clause 13.1, but of course best practice would be to use a suitable template. When changing the Scope the issuer of the instruction has also to notify a compensation event and instruct the submission of a quotation.

If the project is utilising an electronic communication system as provided for under clause 13.2 then the instruction may have to be issued using the appropriate template. These systems are normally designed to help the user understand what they have to do next under the contract, using the instruction template the system knows that you are changing the Scope and therefore prompts you to do the next thing in the process, i.e. notify a CE. If you use a GC the system won’t know what you are up to and won’t prompt you.

If you could explain what is behind your question, “what will be the risk of doing this”, I might be able to provide a bit more information.

It sounds like they are using CEMAR and have issued a change via a GC rather than a PMI.
Unfortunately, it’s an all too familiar but of contractual shenanigans.
If a change is issued by GC by the PM you should raise and EWN and instruct a risk reduction meeting to find out what he is up to.