As part of their ongoing publishing programme, the Joint Contracts Tribunal (JCT) released the first batch of their ‘2016’ contracts towards the end of June 2016. This included the Minor Works (MW) and the Minor Works with Contractor’s Design (MWD). This was followed at the end of September 2016 by the Design and Build Contract (DB) and the Standard Building Contract in November 2016.
So what’s new?
There’s a mixture of consolidation and new content in the two new MW contracts. Some updating has come about as a result of the incorporation of some amendments issued since the contracts were last republished in 2011. This includes Amendment 1:2015, (which picked up changes resulting from the introduction of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015), and also the JCT Public Sector Supplement: 2011 – ‘Fair Payment, Transparency and Building Information Modelling’.
As noted in their earlier press release, JCT have made some alterations to the payment and insurance provisions, with the intention of making both easier to manage. The payment section has been reviewed and streamlined, with the introduction of the concept of interim valuation dates, and the removal of the two-monthly intervals between payments after practical completion, to make the contract better match the ‘Construction Act’ provisions. The insurance provisions have also been revised, with the intention of making them more reflective of the options available in the marketplace.
We are working hard to keep NBS tools and services up to date with the very latest versions of contracts
What about NBS content?
NBS Preliminaries/ Project Management
Content for the JCT Minor Works Building Contracts has been reviewed and amended for inclusion in all of the NBS specification tools; NBS Binders and Discs, NBS Building, NBS Scheduler and NBS Create subscribers received updates in mid to late July. The A20 sections in NBS Landscape Preliminaries have been updated to reflect the 2016 editions.
Updates to NBS Building preliminaries and NBS Create project management sections for the JCT Design and Build (DB) 2016 Contract were issued in November 2016. (NB. Preliminaries for the DB Contract are only available as part of the NBS ‘full service’ library, so do not appear in NBS Domestic, NBS Landscape, NBS Scheduler or Building Abridged or Minor Works libraries).
Preliminaries / project management sections have also been updated to reflect the JCT Standard Building Contract published in November 2016, and the JCT Intermediate Building Contracts (ID and ICD) 2016, which were published in December 2016.
SBCC are in the process of updating their range of contracts for use in Scotland. MW/ Scot, MWD/ Scot and DB/ Scot were published in early 2017 and NBS Binders and Discs, NBS Building, NBS Landscape, NBS Scheduler and NBS Create have been updated to reflect these changes.. SBCC published ‘2016’ versions of SBC/Q/ Scot, SBC/AQ/Scot and SBC/XQ/Scot contracts in 2017, and updated Preliminaries and Project Management sections have now been issued to reflect the changes NB. Preliminaries for the JCT/SBCC 'SBC' and 'DB' Contracts are only available as part of the NBS 'full service' library so do not appear in NBS Domestic, NBS Landscape, NBS Scheduler or NBS Building Abridged or Minor Works libraries.
NBS content has also been updated in response to the pubication of some of the less widely used JCT '2016' contracts - Constructing Excellence (CE), Framework Agreement (FA), Prime Cost (PCC), Major Projects (MP) and Measured Term (MTC). , as well as for the equivalent Scottish versions, once these are published.
For those who subscribe to NBS Landscape, you will be aware that JCLI use JCT documents as the basis of their own landscape contracts.
Updated NBS content is now available in respect of the . JCLI ‘2017’ Landscape Works Contracts and their Scottish Landscape Agreement counterparts.
NBS Domestic Specification
Preliminaries sets for JCT MW and MWD contracts are included in NBS Domestic Specification. An update to the content was issued in June 2016. Preliminaries sets for MW/Scot and MWD Scot were amended following publication in 2017.
Contract Administration
Template forms for use with the administration of JCT contracts are produced by RIBA Publishing.
‘RIBA’ forms for use with ‘2016’ editions of JCT Standard, Intermediate, Minor Works and Design and Build contracts (all variants), have now been incorporated into NBS Contract Administrator, while paper versions of those forms may be ordered from the RIBA bookshop.
Users of the previous ‘2011’ editions of JCT should use the corresponding ‘2011’ versions of the RIBA forms, and these continue to be supported within NBS Contract Administrator.
Summary
We are working hard to keep NBS tools and services up to date with the very latest versions of contracts. A note on NEC contracts NEC issued their ‘NEC4’ suite of documents in June 2017. NBS Preliminaries/ Project Management sets have all now been updated to reflect the changes once these contracts are available.
There are still a small number of as yet unpublished ‘2016’ contracts. Watch this space for further announcements, or check the scope and content list for the relevant Specification Tool.
