NEC3 Option B: Assesment of Bill of Quantities Item in order to assess extent of Compensation Event

NEC3 and NEC4 Contracts Compensation Events
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The Contract Bill of Quantities in accordance with NRM2 had an Item for Structural Steelwork and listed a number of Structural Engineers drawings which the Contractor had to then insert his price against.in lieu of the PQS quantifying the actual tonnage and the Contractor rating this.

There are two main issues with the listed drawings:
a) The length of some members cannot be ascertained by the drawings listed and
b) Some members are not annotated to state what the size is

In addition to the drawings listed against the Bill of Quantities item there are other Works Information drawings and BIM Model that would assist in resolving the issue.

There are also two comments within the Preliminaries document which appear to conflict::

  1. “Contractor shall be deemed to have allowed for compliance with all the requirements of these Preliminaries & Works Information which shall apply equally to the whole of the work”
    2)’‘That where 3D models have been issued then the 2D drawings shall take precedence’’

The Contractor is stating that only the drawings stated within the Bill Of Quantities item are to be considered and are therefore claiming the additional steel which is now annotated or sections issued to allow the calculation of the length of columns within the revised works information. The PQS on the other hand is only measuring the steel which has changed between all of the Contract Works Information including the BIM Model and the current Works Information.

Any thoughts on who is correct.

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Contractor provides the works in accordance with the Works Information (20.1) NOT the B of Q. However, the Project Manager corrects mistakes in the B of Q due to ambiguities which would then be a compensation event (60.6). Also may be relevant would be 60.7 that states that a compensation event resulting from an inconsistency between the B of Q and another contract document (i.e. Works Information).

I guess it really depends on how the B of Q has been worded. The Contractor can only price the B of Q, yet they are to provide the works in accordance with the Works Information. There has to be a test of 60.6 and 60.7 to see if a compensation event is valid (noting the hierarchy of 3D over 2D that has been introduced). Worth noting that any compensation event does not use B of Q rates UNLESS both Parties agree to use them. Compensation events will be assessed from first principles using Defined Cost.

Hard to give an absolute definitive answer in this situation as (as is often the case) the devil will be in the detail here.