CDM Regulations 2007 – What changes have the contract publishers made?

NBS has maintained over 80 Preliminaries sets, at update 2007-2, July, for use with contracts published by a wide variety of bodies.

However, the introduction of the CDM Regulations 2007 has meant that amendments are needed to almost all of the contracts. NBS Technical Author Roland Finch explains what the various publishers have been doing.

There are two types of changes needed to contracts which result from the new CDM regulations 2007; firstly those which might be considered largely cosmetic – for example the ‘Planning Supervisor’ is now called a ‘CDM Coordinator’ - and secondly technical changes such as where a document reference has been amended, a new clause is required, or someone’s duties have been modified.

Each of the contract publishers has dealt with these issues in different ways and because NBS Preliminaries are written for such a diverse range of contract forms we have summarised the action they have taken to date.

JCT

JCT issued ‘Amendment 1’ and subsequently ‘Revision 1’ for the majority of their 2005 contracts. At the same time they announced that the JCT 1998 forms will not be updated and it’s expected these will be withdrawn later this year.

In addition, JCT has used this opportunity to include some further alterations which are not related to CDM 2007. For instance, covering the new CIS tax deduction scheme, as well as some other corrections noted since the 2005 forms were originally published.

SBCC

The Scottish Building Contracts Committee (SBCC) adapts JCT contracts for use in Scotland, so we expect the procedures adopted by JCT to be closely followed by the SBCC, although the publication dates will be slightly later. Amendment sheets have been issued and integrated revisions will follow in due course.

GC/Works

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC), who publishes GC/Works contracts, announced some time ago that they would advise public sector procurers to select a form of contract according to the principles of their ‘Achieving Excellence in Construction’ initiative.

GC/Works was originally designed to comply with these principles; in fact, the preface to PC/Works 1998 - the guide for use with GC/Works contracts, says it was designed to:

“Provide employers with even handed and comprehensible construction contracts which have a long pedigree…..and are not completely novel (like the New Engineering Contract)”.

OGC now tell us, however, that they have no plans to update GC/Works in line with CDM 2007 and they will no longer be available for purchase in the near future.

In addition, they have announced that the NEC3 suite of contracts now fully comply with the achieving excellence principles and they have endorsed it as their contract of choice since its launch in 2005.

NEC

NBS provides Preliminaries for both the second and third edition of the Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC) as well as the ‘short’ contract (ECSC). The publishers of these forms advise that because CDM 2007 is not directly mentioned in their contract – they view it as a statutory requirement – there is no need to amend the form.

There are, of course, some aspects of CDM 2007 which may still affect the contract – such as the new requirement (under CDM clause 10.2). This sets out the client’s obligation to advise of the minimum amount of time before the construction phase, which will be allowed to contractors, for planning and preparation for construction work. Nevertheless, they have not issued any amendment to date.

ICE

NBS provides Preliminaries for use with the ICE Minor Works contract (third edition 2002) in NBS building, NBS Landscape and NBS Scheduler. ICE has issued a CDM 2007 amendment for this contract and we are currently making the appropriate changes.

National Federation of Demolition Contractors (NFDC)

The NFDC has published a 2007 version of their Standard Form of Demolition Contract and we will shortly update NBS Preliminaries. They advise that they do not anticipate a CDM 2007 amendment.

JCLI

The Joint Council for the Landscape Industry (JCLI) has produced a landscape contract (the JCLI Agreement for Landscape Works) which is based on the JCT 1998 Agreement for Minor Building Works.

Following JCT’s announcement that the 1998 contracts will not be updated, JCLI have withdrawn their own contract and have issued Practice Notes 6 and 7. Practice Note 6 explains how to amend the JCT 2005 Minor Works contract for landscape activities and Practice Note 7 explains how to amend the current JCLI Agreement for Landscape Maintenance Works to comply with CDM 2007. These changes will be incorporated into NBS Landscape.

Irish Contracts

The Republic of Ireland is not subject to the terms of CDM 2007. However, they are subject to EU directive 92/57/EEC concerning the implementation of minimum safety and health requirements at temporary or mobile construction sites. In Eire, this manifests itself as the ‘Safety, Health and Welfare Regulations 2006’ which have similar requirements. Adjustments are currently being made to NBS Preliminaries to take account of this, and also three new ‘Public Works’ contracts, which we will shortly add to NBS Building.

The scope and content of NBS Preliminaries, for each of our specification products, is available in the Products section.

If you have any queries please contact the NBS Customer Centre on 0845 456 9594.

Written August 2007