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What does NEC4 clause 60.1(3) mean?

It is a compensation event when your main contractor, or the Client in the main contract, fails to provide something by its date on the Accepted Programme.

Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.

The answer

Something is a wide word. It covers free-issue materials, information, drawings, a power supply, a survey, a temporary works platform, or a consent the Scope says will be obtained for you. You must show two things together. First, the contract obliges your main contractor to provide it, usually in the Scope or the Contract Data. Second, the Accepted Programme shows a date for it, and that date has passed. The second is where claims are most often lost. If the programme does not show when you need the item, the clause has nothing to bite on. So put every item you are to be given on the programme as a dated activity or milestone. Notify under clause 61.3 within 8 weeks of becoming aware the date has passed. Give an early warning under clause 15.1 first, as soon as the item looks likely to be late. The change to the Prices, your contract price, is assessed under clause 63.1. It is the effect on actual Defined Cost up to the notification and forecast Defined Cost after it, plus the Fee. That typically means standing resources, resequencing, extra visits, and any substitute you source with agreement. Two things go wrong most. You buy the missing item yourself without an instruction and expect the cost back. Or you are told you should have used the waiting time on other work, when the programme shows you could not. Any delay to the Completion Date is assessed separately under clause 63, and that is a job for your planner.

Example

Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.

The facts

A steel erector on an Option B subcontract is to receive holding-down bolts that the Scope says the main contractor will free-issue. The Accepted Programme shows their delivery as a milestone before erection starts. The bolts arrive 3 weeks late.

What happens

  1. The erector gives an early warning when the supplier reports the delay.
  2. It notifies the event under clause 61.3 the day after the milestone passes.
  3. The mobile crane and erection gang are on site for the planned start, and cannot be released without a demobilisation charge.
  4. The quotation assesses standing Defined Cost of £4,300 a week for 3 weeks, £12,900, plus £1,250 for the crane's second delivery. That is £14,150 under clause 63.1.
  5. With a fee percentage of 4 per cent, the Fee is £566 and the proposed change to the Prices is £14,716.

The quotation in figures

ItemAmount
Standing Defined Cost, 3 weeks at £4,300 a week£12,900
Second delivery of the crane£1,250
Defined Cost£14,150
Fee at 4 per cent£566
Proposed change to the Prices£14,716

The outcome

The proposed change to the Prices goes in at £14,716, and any effect on the Completion Date is shown on the revised programme.

To have events like this logged the day they land and notified inside their period, see our Compensation Event Loss Prevention service.