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Contract Preliminaries
What are the Preliminaries/General Conditions?
- The Preliminaries/General Conditions (generally referred to as the Preliminaries) are a set of written documents describing general information and requirements relating to the Works as a whole. They include items about the type of contract, the tender process, management of the Works, and general information about quality standards and workmanship.
- It is hardly surprising that architects are sometimes bemused by the status of the Preliminaries. The RIBA Job Book Stage F, Core Material F/CM2 Specification and Schedules of Work, describes the Specification in some detail without explaining that the Specification consists of two parts, the Preliminaries and the Work Sections. Core Material F/CM3 Bills of Quantities, however, describes this split in detail.
- This confusion is reinforced by the current practice whereby the Preliminaries are often written by the QS whereas the Work Sections are generally written by the Architect, Designer, Engineer, or other design specifier.
- Architects and other designers should, however, be perfectly capable of writing the Main Contract Preliminaries themselves if the contract is one of those for which the NBS provides clauses and guidance, e.g. various forms of the GC/W, ICE, JCT, NEC, RIAI, and SBCC contracts.
Main Contract Preliminaries
- There will always be some form of Main Contract Preliminaries, irrespective of the type of contract.
Sub Contract Preliminaries
- There will generally be some form of Sub Contract Preliminaries, although the exact format may vary significantly dependant on the type of contract.
- Sub Contracts where the Sub Contractor has some design responsibility will always require action by those writing specifications.
Guidance
Irrespective of who is writing the Preliminaries, it is important that those writing the Work Sections are aware of the answers to the following questions in order they can write the Work Sections appropriately:
What is the method of procurement?
What elements of the building will be designed by specialists?
- Whatever method of building procurement is used, it is highly likely that there will be elements of the building wholly or partly designed by a Specialist Contractor.
- The exact nature of the contractual relationship will differ dependant on the method of procurement but there are similarities in the means of describing the client's requirements, the designer's intentions, and the contractor's proposals.
- Read the Performance Specifications page and decide which elements of the building will have "in context" design by a specialist requiring specific provision within the contract. (JCT Guide Levels 3 and 4).
What is the basis of the Preliminaries?
- NBS-based or non-NBS?
- It is much easier for those writing NBS-based Work Sections to ensure co-ordination of the complete contract documentation when the Preliminaries are also NBS-based. It is perfectly possible to co-ordinate NBS-based Work Sections with non-NBS Preliminaries, but it does take rather more effort.
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