Adjudication
Adjudication is the fast statutory dispute process available on UK construction contracts: a party refers a dispute to a…
Glossary
The language of the record
Plain-English definitions of the terms that decide construction projects and disputes, written by people who have used them in anger.
As-built records
As-built records document what was actually constructed, as distinct from what was designed: final routes of services, a…
Building Safety Act 2022
The Building Safety Act 2022 is the law passed after the Grenfell Tower fire to overhaul how building safety is managed …
Building safety gateways
The gateways are the three control points the Building Safety Act places across a higher-risk building project. Gateway …
CDE (common data environment)
A common data environment is the agreed single source of truth for project information: the platform and processes throu…
CDM 2015
The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 are the UK regulations governing how construction projects are…
Contemporaneous records
Contemporaneous records are documents created at or close to the time of the events they describe: site diaries, photogr…
Critical path
The critical path is the longest chain of dependent activities through a programme: the sequence with no float, where an…
Daywork
Daywork is a method of valuing work on the basis of the labour, plant and materials actually used, plus agreed percentag…
Dutyholder
Dutyholder is the umbrella term for the parties who carry legal duties on a construction project: the client, designers,…
EOT (extension of time)
An extension of time moves the contractual completion date because of delay caused by events the contract allocates to t…
Golden thread
The golden thread is the Building Safety Act’s requirement for an accurate, up-to-date and accessible record of building…
Higher-risk building
A higher-risk building is one that falls within the stricter part of the Building Safety Act regime. During design and c…
ISO 19650
ISO 19650 is the international standard for managing information over the whole life cycle of a built asset. It grew out…
ITP (inspection and test plan)
An inspection and test plan sets out the quality verification for a scope of work: what will be inspected or tested, at …
Liquidated damages (LDs)
Liquidated damages are the pre-agreed sum the contractor pays for late completion, usually expressed per week or per day…
Loss and expense
Loss and expense is the money side of employer-caused delay and disruption: the contractor’s entitlement to be reimburse…
Mandatory occurrence reporting
Mandatory occurrence reporting is the Building Safety Act duty to report certain safety occurrences on higher-risk build…
Method statement
A method statement describes how a specific piece of work will be carried out: the sequence of operations, the plant and…
NCR (non-conformance report)
A non-conformance report records work, materials or processes that do not meet the specified requirement: the wrong conc…
Pay less notice
Under the UK Construction Act payment regime, a paying party that intends to pay less than the sum notified must issue a…
Practical completion
Practical completion is the contractual milestone at which the works are complete enough for the employer to take and us…
Preliminaries (prelims)
Preliminaries are the costs of running the project as a whole rather than any measured work item: site management and su…
Principal contractor
The principal contractor is the contractor appointed to control the construction phase where more than one contractor is…
Principal designer
The principal designer is the designer appointed to control the design phase where more than one contractor is involved.…
RAMS
RAMS stands for Risk Assessment and Method Statement, the paired documents that describe how a construction task will be…
Retention
Retention is a percentage of each payment (commonly three to five per cent) withheld by the paying party as security for…
RFI (request for information)
A request for information is the formal question a contractor raises when the design information is missing, ambiguous o…
Site diary
A site diary is the daily record of what actually happened on a construction site: weather, labour and plant on site, wo…
Snagging
Snagging is the process of identifying and recording minor defects and unfinished items, typically as a project approach…
Toolbox talk
A toolbox talk is a short, focused briefing delivered to the workforce on site, usually on a specific hazard or task: wo…
Variation
A variation is a change to the works from what the contract described: more work, less work, different work, or changed …