Helping you to get the NEC right
Delivering infrastructure is about a healthy partnership between the infrastructure provider (whether new builder or maintainer) and the procurer and user. At the heart of this is the NEC form of contract which is used to deliver all our major infrastructure. The NEC is an excellent tool but needs to be understood and administered. Both take skill and effort, Alan Milton explains.
The NEC suite of contracts is a family of contract documents that are written in a simple to read and easy to understand language. They promote and stimulate good contract and project management and they can be used for almost any commercial arrangement on a wide range of civil engineering and building projects. When introduced, the NEC was seen as a breath of fresh air to the industry. It was strict but fair, collaborative yet disciplined but above all, it was designed to ensure that the parties worked in a spirit of mutual trust and co-operation. This was a whole new concept to the industry and it proved to be massively successful.
The NEC contracts, however, have proved to be difficult for users who were not familiar with them or set up to use them. One thing that the NEC does, and this is to be lauded, is administer the contract in a very strict manner. There are procedures and systems for dealing with any and all eventualities such as early warnings, compensation events and payments. The consequences of not complying with these systems however, can be severe. If one of the parties misses a deadline, it can find itself with an unexpected liability. Anybody who does not have the staff or administrative capacity to administer an NEC contract will invariably find themselves falling foul of a condition precedent, or other such requirement.
It is this reason that prompted Ben Walker (a civil engineer and local government employee at the time) to design and develop a system that would ‘hold your hand’ through an NEC contract, ensuring that a user could administer an NEC contract, in full compliance, with the utmost of ease. Ben developed the Contracts Event Management and Reporting system (CEMAR) in 2005. It now manages some of the UK’s largest construction contracts and works programmes over a wide range of sectors. It is widely acknowledged as the most intuitive system for administering NEC contracts. CEMAR is a simple, flexible, fully hosted and maintained contract management web application for use with all forms of NEC contract. It is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and has no downloads or installation requirements. A user can log in from anywhere, at any time, on any computer.
A recent addition to the system has been the partnership developed between CEMAR and procurement and contract specialist, Quigg Golden. With the soar in adoption of NEC and a growing CEMAR user base, support tickets are predominantly NEC process or legally themed. Ben approached James Golden with a view to Quigg Golden providing online legal and contractual help and support to CEMAR users.
Ben said: “I have known James for many years; we are both trainers in NEC and ICE examiners. When looking for additional expert capacity, Quigg Golden was the obvious choice. Their NEC and legal expertise further complements the advice and support available to our users.”
CEMAR users will now be able to receive support and advice from a dedicated staff of NEC specialists at Quigg Golden. Quigg Golden’s NEC staff have acted both as project managers and contractors and are ideally placed to provide advice based on their practical experience and solid knowledge of the contract and legal systems.
What was already a powerful system for managing and running NEC contracts has now been significantly strengthened by the partnership that has developed between CEMAR and Quigg Golden. Users can rest assured that not only is their contract being administered correctly and efficiently, full legal and contractual advice is only a click away.
For more information, visit www.cmtoolkit.com or www.quigggolden.com
