Who on site should own the records?
Name one person responsible for each record, plus a deputy, and note who else feeds into it.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
Give the diary to someone who sees the work. Give each register to the person who runs that commercial or document process. Give the photographs to someone who can keep the original file and its location. If an entry comes second-hand, say so, and name the person who supplied it. A senior person can then check a sample each month against the drawings and correspondence. Anything urgent must not wait for that monthly check. Raise it straight away and keep track of the notice deadline.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A groundworks subcontractor sets who is responsible for the diary, the registers and the reviews on two similar jobs. On one, responsibility is shared. On the other, each record has a named person and a monthly sample.
What happens
- On the job with shared responsibility, gaps appear in the records.
- On the job with named people, the monthly sample finds a drawing register falling behind and a handover event nobody had reviewed.
- The sample records what was put right and what is still unknown.
The outcome
Naming who is responsible, and sampling each month, improves accountability. It does not prove a notice was valid or that a later claim will succeed.
To have every hold-up sent to a named person and deputy the day it happens, see our Delay & Disruption Loss Prevention service.