I've been told to speed up, at my own cost

A push to speed up, called acceleration, can mean overtime, weekend working, extra gangs or working out of sequence. It rarely arrives as a clear instruction. It comes as a comment in a meeting, a new target on the programme, or pressure to catch up. It may not say on whose authority, what is wanted or who pays.

Whether you get the cost back depends on your subcontract and on what caused the delay. It also depends on what you were asked to do, what else you could have done, and what you can prove you did. Acceleration, mitigation (the steps you take to keep a delay's cost down) and an ordinary catch-up plan are different things. Tell them apart from the facts, not from one remark in a meeting. Being pushed to hold your original date when you should have had more time is often called constructive acceleration.

Speed up on a verbal push and you may carry the cost of every extra gang and Saturday yourself. Later there may be nothing in writing to show who asked. And a cost figure on its own does not prove you are owed the money.

Before a second gang is booked, write down the finish date wanted, who asked, the measures proposed, on whose authority and who pays. Ask for it in writing the same day. An acceleration record holds all of that on one sheet, with the meeting and programme records behind it. Keep the extra cost and any cost avoided in separate columns from day one.

Delay & Disruption Claim prices the premium against a period that was not accelerated. The premium is what speeding up cost over and above normal working. We take the delay position, and the case for payment, from you or your programmer. We do not assess them ourselves.