NEC4 ECC Option E - Defined cost and general site expenditure

NEC3 and NEC4 Contracts
1

Could someone give me a steer on where general preliminary items would fit, if at all, in the SoCC and defined cost under NEC4 Option E.

Managing Reality in the SoCC v Prelim comparisons note that ‘general office expenditure’ falls under Charges, but I cant see any specifics in the contract in Charges with regards to the below.

  1. Tea, coffee, milk etc; I can see subsistence is a component if in accordance with a persons contract but providing subsistence generally to the site team doesn’t seem to fit anywhere.

  2. office consumables; paper, toner, pens: I can see consumables noted at item 25, but I believe this is more related to plant consumables fuels, oil etc and Item 53(h) seems specific with providing these to the PM.

  3. Monitors, laptops, hard IT equipment; Again I can see 13(p) but generally have monitors provided to hot desks rather than specific employees based on their contract

Many Thanks

2

The health warning here is that this can all be contextual, and you are clearly using an amended contract. My answers are based on unamended.

The general rule is that if you can’t find it in the SoCC its not Defined Cost and therefore must be covered by the Fee. I also note that there were substantial changes to this NEC3 > 4, so this is an NEC4 answer.

Bear in mind that NEC’s objective here was to simplify, and a lot of what you are describing here is exactly the difference between ‘actual cost’ and Defined Cost.

Taking your examples in turn:

  1. I do not believe there is a component for these. Therefore, covered by the fee.
  2. Your read is correct. These are in fee unless provided for the PM / Supervisor. For the PM items my normal practice has been to come up with a percentage of relevant costs to be paid, based on whatever existing records the Contractor has - i.e. don’t create any more work than is strictly necessary. That’s probably only worthwhile on projects which have a decent amount of consumables being used; if this is a very small cost I think you have to ask if it is worthwhile.
  3. There is no 13(p) in an unamended Contract, so I can’t comment on that. Normally IT would be in fee unless its internet under Charges 51.
1 Like
3

Thank you for the response Andy