The early warnings should have been raised and weren't
Our early warning register is empty, and things have already gone wrong on the job that should have been on it.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
What's happening?
An early warning is the notice you give as soon as you spot something that could raise cost, delay the work or affect quality. On an NEC job it goes on the early warning register, through the process your subcontract sets. An empty register tells nobody whether a risk was known, when it arose, or what follows.
An early warning is easy to mix up with a compensation event notification, a quotation or an assessment. They are separate. The contract and the facts decide whether a missing warning affects an assessment, not a general feeling that you should have spoken up.
The cost comes later. If your main contractor decides you should have warned and did not, it can assess the event as if you had. The cost a timely warning would have avoided then comes out of your money.
The solution
Start a live early warning register now, without backdating it. Give each current risk its source, the person responsible, the mitigation decision and a review date. Set a route for urgent risks that cannot wait for the next meeting. Compensation Event Loss Prevention sets the register up alongside the notification routine and proves both on a live month.
Record past gaps honestly rather than papering over them. Where an event has already been assessed down because no warning was given, Compensation Event Claim tests what a warning would actually have changed. Only the cost a timely warning would have avoided should come out.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
An electrical subcontractor's commercial manager on a £9,000,000 NEC job finds the early warning register empty at month five. The correspondence shows the long-lead switchgear order slipping, and an asbestos survey that does not cover the basement.
What happens
- The Early Warning Register is started that week and not backdated.
- Each current risk gets a named person responsible, a mitigation decision, a review date and its source. The existing correspondence is kept beside it.
- The switchgear entry carries the date of the first email that mentioned the problem, and a note that no early warning was given then. Nobody writes a new entry dated to look old.
- The early warnings are kept separate from the compensation event notifications and from any quotation.
- Urgent risks do not wait for the monthly meeting: a risk reduction meeting can be called within days.
- In the first month nine risks are entered, and two go to a meeting that week.
- The switchgear risk is £60,000 of delay-related cost if the original supplier is kept. It is reduced by switching to another supplier at £14,000 above the order price.
The switchgear risk
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Delay-related cost if the original supplier is kept | £60,000 |
| Substitute supplier, above the order price | £14,000 |
The outcome
Whether the earlier silence affects any assessment stays with the contract wording and the solicitor. The new register does not cure it and does not claim to.