00:00 - Introduction

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to our next webinar in our series. So warm welcome if this is your first one or welcome back if you've been in one of these previous webinars. Episode seven, time is flying by. Today we're going to be talking about the role of the contract data. So data part one, data part two, we have a nice deep dive looking into this session.

So allow people to introduce themselves as we go through, but we got Ben Walker here from Gather, David Allen from CECA, and we're joined by Iain Jeffries from NEC as well for this session today. So today, role of the contract data. So warm welcome to those joining live. Also very warm welcome to those of you watching this on playback after the event. So these are available afterwards for anyone to catch up on as well.

David, would you like to introduce CECA? Thanks, Glenn. Yeah, hi again. I'm David Allen, the Executive Director for CECA Southern, and I'm looking forward to this separate episode around contract data within the NEC for Ben, Glenn, and our special guest today will provide an overview around this topic shortly.

But first, just a reminder about CECA. To be clear, it's the Civil Engineering Contractors Association and its place, I want to talk about its place in representing those that deliver and maintain a significant part of our mainland UK infrastructure. CECA Southern is just one part of a member-led trade association that is made up of six English regions and the devolved nations of Scotland and Wales with a policy office in Westminster. We collectively engage on industry issues with governments and those bodies that impact on our industry at both a national and regional level.

You can find out more about our activities on our CECA websites, but we also deliver training, including that around the NEC4 contract, where again we look to increase awareness and seek to promote a fair and equitable use of this tool. Today we look at an element of the contract that plays a big part in determining both the obligations on and the liabilities to be carried by the parties to the contract. This in turn also helps to determine the supply chain's thoughts around engagement with the contract.

01:30 - What is Contract Data and Why It Matters

So I will now hand over to Ben and see how we go from there. Thank you, David. Good afternoon, everyone. So the role of contract data, episode seven, we're cracking on with these. So as always, the origins of the word. So contract, Latin, from contractus, to bring together. And data is already Latin, the plural of datum, meaning something given or fact given.

So bringing those two things together, we're going to have a look at why we have contract data and where to find it, getting ready to complete contract data, what do we do before we fill out that form, as we'll see shortly, hopefully digitally. And then we wanted to kind of drop into having a chat pre this webinar with David, really the perspective of the contractor in particular initially, and what does this actually present to us as a headline invitation to tender document that we would receive.

And is it wise, perhaps, to see if we can get some sort of market engagement day in advance of that, particularly to look at the strategy? So that should be interesting. And then Glenn will take us through the flip side of that and what the client might be looking at and perhaps using that user guide volume three to have a look through selecting a supplier.

Then we will give as much time as possible to our special guest today, Iain, who will take us through NEC Digital live, where we can actually see this contract data being put together and also avoid some of the pitfalls that you can make by perhaps making an incomplete document if you left to your own devices in a Word template or choosing options that perhaps aren't compatible. So really looking forward to that.

We'll draw it to a close with some short conclusions, but then we'll jump into your questions and answers and point you in the direction of some useful resources.

04:00 - The Car and Fuel Analogy

So start off with an analogy which I've given many times during training. The contract would be an empty shell without contract data. If the contract was a finely tuned car, if the conditions of contract, those clauses, those core main and secondary options that we take, if they were a car, then contract data is the fuel that makes it move.

There are nineteen pages at the back of the engineering construction contract. We'll see this being fairly consistent across the family, and they won't be quite so large a set of pages and there will be fewer pages in the short forms. We capture these contract data at the back after the conditions of contract. And as we say, it fuels up the contract with the particulars about the project.

It's organised into two parts. We have part one provided by the client. And this is, as we mentioned, sort of headline invitations, tender document. And we have part two, data provided by the contractor. So the successful bidder's part two, if it's a competitive environment, that gets brought together with part one. And together, that's the fuel.

06:00 - Italicised Terms: The Bridge Between Conditions and Data

Now, so we talked about those two things. How do we join them together? What's the sort of bridge between them? Well, the link between them is very elegant. It's the use of italicised terms. So anywhere in the contract where we see a word written in italics, it's not a defined term. That's got a capital initial. So the word Defect has a definition in that kind of glossary of terms, those glossary of defined terms near the front of the book.

But if it's written in italics, like the word project manager, then that means it's got a specific value. It might be a name, an address, a date, a percentage, a period of time or a rate. And that, you can't guess what that is. Of course, that is actually identified in that sort of fill in the blanks that we're going to have a look at today. And that's the bridge between the two.

09:00 - Where Contract Data Fits in the NEC4 Contract Structure

Glenn, over to you. Excellent. So just to repeat what Ben said there. So anything capitalised in the contract is a defined term and you can drop into clause 11.2 and see what the definitions are. There's twenty in the standard core clauses, few extra defined terms in the option specifics and then no doubt an array in your Z clauses or extra defined terms as well.

Anything that's project specific, as Ben said, is a value. And so that's what our italicised terms means. So whenever you've got something in italics in the contract, it means you can refer to that. You need to go to your contract data to find out what that particular thing is.

So just looking at just some of these. Obviously some of the important things. The project manager. So who is the project manager? That's the only person who's given instruction to change the scope. The period for reply. So what is the generic period for reply? Some things or a lot of things have timescales built into the contract, but anything that doesn't have a set timescale reverts to the period for reply.

So defect date and defect correction period. How long are you liable for defects for? And if there is a defect, how long have you got to correct the individual defect itself? And then some very important things like access date, completion date, fee percentages. So various elements there are italicised throughout the contract and you need to refer back to the contract data for your project to see what your element of that thing is.

And then where does it fit in, in terms of the contract as a whole? Well, we've seen this slide partly on one of our earlier webinars. So just a reminder, down the left-hand side, we've got our conditions of contract. So obviously, you've got your core clauses, which are common to all of the options. We've got our main option clauses. Is it A, B, C, D, E, or F? We've then got one dispute resolution option and then any number of X clauses, Y clauses and then Z clauses being additional conditions of contract.

And we've had a webinar on Z clauses themselves to catch up on as well. So that's the conditions of contract that encompass together and then also making up the contract you've got scope, so that'll be all the drawings, specifications, standards that the contractor is to build to. So what basically needs to be built and the constraints along the way is how to build them.

Site information is then described in the existing site conditions, so ground investigation reports, cable survey drawings, things like that. And then fundamentally contract data is going to form part of this signed contract. So again hence why it's so important. So contract data part one is provided by the client, filled in by the client. And then data part two is then filled in by the contractor.

So it's really important to understand both elements. So if you're a contractor, it's important to understand what the client has written in data part one. What do I need to fill in within data part two? And from a client's perspective, yes, you need to know what you're filling in with data part one, and then understanding what information you've got in data part two, because that should form part of the tender process.

What a contractor has completed in data part two should be a factor, obviously, in the awards. Now, obviously, the price, the total prices will be a big factor. That's where everyone's drawn to. But more subtle things like fee percentages, people rates for option A. You might have a contractor that seems cheaper, but then a lot more expensive on their people rates. And if there's a lot of compensation events, that might tip them over. Maybe another tenderer who's appeared to be slightly more expensive may be cheaper. So there's a lot to consider in the content that's filled in in contract data.

12:00 - Getting Ready to Complete Contract Data

So getting ready to complete it. Well, if you're not using NEC Digital, which Iain's going to run us through today, then you will have a Word version of the contract, which you could obtain from NEC. That's published for free. It's even on the GMH Planning website as well. You can download the Word versions.

Edit the contract data form to remove entries for options that are not being taken. So if it says about option A or option B, take out the bits that aren't relevant for the form. Just be careful though with that because I've seen people delete elements that aren't relevant. And then someone else comes along and takes that form for another contract. And then hang on, there's bits missing. And then basically other bits eventually get left about a page, one page where there's only a few bits left because everyone's deleted bits. And so start from a clean page again.

Every time you redo contract data, start again. Don't fill in a previous contract data because there might be bits missing. Another really frustrating one I find is some clients recreate their own contract data form. I don't know why they do this. The best one I know is written by Iain's team by the NEC which has got everything in. So use the one that the NEC has written and then work through, fill in every entry, make sure it's full.

Null values are very problematic. If a contractor forgets to put in a fee percentage, does that mean they're doing it for free? And if there's no delay damages, does that mean there are none? So it's really simple. Fill in every entry and delete anything that's not relevant or remove it, but then start again from a clean page next time you fill in the new contract data. So really important that we do that.

Ben, anything else to add in terms of tips there? I think you covered it, Glenn. I mean, again, though, use NEC Digital and you won't fall foul of most of those things we just mentioned, because in choosing those options, it will populate the relevant parts of contract data that you have to build, so that you have to enter. Yep, absolutely.

15:00 - Contractor's View: Reading Contract Data Part One

So what does it look like then when we get this? Top things. I mean, we could spend a day on this, but we'll try and squeeze a few initial thoughts in. So as a contractor, the invitation to tender has gone out, you've got yourself a copy and you were working through that headline document, which is, in my mind, contract data part one.

Because right at the very start of that template, whether you fill it out digitally or whether you get yourself a Word version, you'll see that the very first entry there is the conditions of contract. And you can see they're in italics, and that's why, because they're an entry. And it'll say something like, oh, the core clauses for the NEC4 ECC, 2017 with January amendments or whatever. And the main option clauses, and that's where you put your A, B, C, D, E or F. Secondary options, and that's where you list your Xs and Ys and Zs.

And so that very first entry is extremely powerful because as a contractor, you should be seeing that. And with a little bit of familiarity with NEC, you can straight away be thinking, right, this client's going option A. So whatever these works are, they're going to be done on a priced basis. So I'm looking for sound scope, good knowledge of ground conditions.

And typically, there's always that trade going on in the background of the client's mind between budget certainty of outcome and value for money. So somewhere in that mix, we would typically look to see things that aren't quantity volatile or what have you. But sometimes there's no right or wrong, just perhaps more or less appropriate.

Next are those secondary options. So X1 communicates to us, well, this job's likely to have perhaps some steel or some other materials that might be volatile and therefore the client's communicating they would like some value for money in only paying for inflation as it happens rather than having the supply chain in the market kind of guess at what that might look like over the course of a long project.

We've got X7, delayed damages. We've got X15, which tells me straight away there's likely to be some design because that would limit my liability to reasonable skill and care. We've got Y(UK)2, which we'd have to take for certain types of work in certain jurisdictions. And then we've got Z, of course we have, we've got option Z.

And the very first thing I might do after realising what the works are, which are the construction of a new dual highway bridge over the River Chance, is to go and have a look at those Z clauses to see whether it really is an NEC contract or a balanced one. Now, have a look at episode six. That one is all about Z clauses. So that one in concert with this one is quite useful also to appreciate some of those risk allocations that go on behind the scenes.

The works, we shouldn't be looking for a circular reference here that defines the works back in accordance with the scope. We'd really not mention scope here. We don't want a complete restatement of the scope because it creates a bit of a loop that isn't actually desirable for various reasons. It's just a sentence or two about what we're building and where.

So now we know who the client is, we know what the works are, and we know the strategy that's going to underpin this contract and all the detail in the Z clauses. We've got an awful lot there. Next, we're probably thinking about things like period for reply. What do we know about the client? Are they really wrapped up in lots of governance?

And is that why they've adjusted some of the period for replies or specified some of them to be longer than perhaps we might typically see, but that's communicating to us that we might need to leave a longer period of time before we get design acceptances back or what have you. So period for reply applies where the contract is quiet about timescales for a communication response.

Completion date. This is telling us the client's decided to put that in contract data part one. It can also be in contract data part two and perhaps form part of the evaluation of which bidder is giving us the most overall advantageous tender.

Key dates. Any contractor who sees a key date should be thinking, OK, this is something noteworthy, something we need to ask a few questions around. So key dates, remember, aren't just important dates. And again, a message to clients there: understand what key dates are. If you're only having a principal contractor, your supply chain is basically managed by that contractor and there might not be that much need for key dates because these are dates that manage the interfaces between those contractors on the same contract.

But that coordination activity as a contractor, I'd be thinking, well, who are the others who are also working on this project that I'm going to need to meet a certain condition by in order to avoid what is essentially unliquidated costs. It's not damages. And those costs, at least I think our understanding then, we'd agree, don't extend the prolongation and things like that, but they are still a bit of a risk to a contractor.

So understanding what they are and clients only putting them in where relevant is another important thing to have a little zoom in on early on in the tender environment.

So overall, we've got these conditions of contract. They reveal the strategy. We look at these Z clauses that hopefully are a fine tune of that rather than a kind of dramatic reset. We know who the client is and we can hopefully look into what their culture is. Remember, culture, knowledge, discipline. Those three things are essential to getting this to work properly. We know what the works are.

So what next? Well, we probably want to ask ourselves, is there an opportunity to feed back on this? And hopefully if you're a client listening to this, you've built that market test for your strategy for this given contract context into your procurement process so that you're not sort of going down the wrong road, as it were, with a load of would-be bidders perhaps resistant to going down that direction because they've seen genuine issues with your plan that you haven't tested with them.

So hopefully we can do a market day and then obviously whatever the procurement laws allow us in terms of sharing information and thinking things through as a team before we go into that full competitive environment.

Who's to carry the risk of changing the law? That's another one we would hope to see as a contractor. I struggle to think of too many examples where the contractor taking that risk makes a great deal of sense. Perhaps maybe if they're doing big chunks of design as well and they're the experts, maybe that's something to consider. But typically it seems like a sound thing.

Is it a good thing to have X7? I think David was telling me last week, certainly the members prefer to have X7 in there because at least they know what that is then rather than having delayed damages at large as an unliquidated damage. If we are expecting our contractor to do design, then X15 is certainly something we'll be looking for. It's perhaps impossible to insure without that test for reasonable skill and care.

It'd be good to see X18 perhaps as a contractor. We're looking for that limitation of liability where appropriate. And also check that even with Y(UK)2 bringing NEC into the jurisdiction of the Housing Grants Construction Regeneration Act, when we're looking for any timings adjusted to the default, so it defaults at fourteen days but has that been extended perhaps to something else.

22:00 - Risk Allocation: Additional CEs, Client Liabilities, and Early Warning Register

Other places we're looking specifically at kind of risk allocation. Three quick points here, because they're quite important points for contractors and clients alike.

Firstly, contract data part one enables us to add in additional compensation events. So we can just set an objective statement. Don't put a kind of remedy or a pre-estimate of what that would mean in terms of money or time, just the objective statement. Site inundated due to flood water above a certain level AOD. Leave it at that. We then know that it triggers. Asbestos would be another example. Presence of asbestos in the site. So rather than leaving it to the subjectivity of ground site information and clause 60.2, we could just push and say we want the presence of asbestos to be a compensation event.

But maybe we want to go a step further than that and actually have something added in. Again, there's an entry in contract data part one for adding additional client liabilities. Now, this automatically brings them into the compensation event world through compensation event number fourteen. So a client liability is automatically a compensation event, which would give you cost and time. But liabilities have a broader coverage for losses, claims and things like that as well. So that will give you a deeper set of coverage.

And finally, a point just to mention about the early warning register, known as the risk register in NEC3. Mechanically, this hasn't changed at all. It's just called something different. And it's always been the case that this register, it doesn't exist pre-contract, but this pump priming of this register, there's a place in both contract data part one and part two to include matters that will be included on the early warning register when the contract's made.

Entries in there have absolutely no effect of allocating anything. So they are conversation starters to pump prime that early warning register. And I'm sure Glenn's seen occasions as I have where people have got very confused with that and they see something included for inclusion in the early warning register and mistakenly think that that's the other party taking that risk. It isn't. It's just a conversation starter.

Anything to add there, Glenn? No, just as you said. That inclusion in the early warning register is just an early, early warning. These are issues we're going to start the project by discussing early on. And it doesn't allocate that risk. Absolutely.

So I think those are kind of the main entries that you would perhaps review to take an initial view as to your appetite for tendering. There, of course, the devil's in the detail. And certainly the Z clauses could take us in all sorts of directions. But if you've got a fairly good knowledge of how NEC fits together, I think covering off those few things will give you a good head start. But of course, there's more to do.

27:00 - Contract Data Part Two: The Contractor's Entries

Glenn, looking at it from kind of the part two bit. Yeah, there's less pages to fill in. So if you just look at the number of pages, there's a lot more pages to fill in with data part one and a lot fewer, two pages from memory where broadly anyway, that you're filling in the elements. But again, it's really important stuff. So it's important that whoever's completing their entry for contract data, you fill in every entry. And only if there's something that's not relevant then okay you can take it out, delete it, and make it clear that that element is not necessary. It's been deliberately not filled in. But need to make that clear within the submission.

So the contractor is going to fill in who they are. Now it's always interesting, so they can write a company name but also it's good to get a representative who is representing from the contractor, who's going to be the equivalent of the project manager. There have been discussions about whether the NEC should actually stipulate there needs to be the name of a contractor's representative, which I can understand either side. I'm fairly relaxed about whether or not we have that.

So it's the name of the contractor, but also we need to convey who that person is that is going to be administering the project on behalf of the contractor, because they're the equivalent of the contractor's project manager. Again, cloud-based systems, if we're using one of these established cloud-based systems, then people are given admin rights. So it's relatively straightforward that you can't go wrong with a cloud-based system.

The fee percentage, a lot simpler now in NEC4. You might remember in NEC3, there were multiple fee percentages to calculate, very detailed. And then different percentages would apply at different situations. Much easier now. It's just one single fee percentage.

The working areas, so here's the opportunity for the contractor to identify any other areas as well as the boundaries of the site that would form part of the working area. So the contractor's elements that they want added in, because they only get paid for people within the working area, so it is important that these are identified at tender stage.

It's not the last opportunity because there is another space, or in the contract it says at any point under clause 16.3 I'm thinking, the contractor can propose further working areas during the life of the project and the project manager has to accept or not accept them. So it's not your last chance for working areas but much better you get that set out at tender stage and there's no question that that then is part of the working area. It's one less thing to have to get accepted during the life of the project.

Key persons. So the contractor can name key persons. A lot of people say, well, how many should we put? The form seems to default to two people. Sometimes the client would list how many they want. But otherwise as a contractor it's how many you think you need to convey to demonstrate you've got a good team of people you're committing to put on the project.

You don't list the whole organogram here. You just list the people in important roles like senior construction manager, senior commercial manager, people like that that are going to make a difference on the job. And you're conveying you've got good people to fulfil this job, especially if it's something like an option C or an option E where the client wants good people because it's a cost-reimbursable contract, so it's more likely to go better with good, experienced people.

And yes, if you can't provide a key person that you said you would, well, Section 24 of the contract deals with alternative key persons that need to be issued for acceptance. So as a contractor, just list the number you think you need to convey the calibre of the experience you're planning to put on this project.

The programme. It's not compulsory to submit a programme as part of the tender submission. It's just a very, very, very good idea because if you do submit a programme as part of contract data, you'll demonstrate you've understood the project, you understood programmes, you understand NEC requirements. One of our secret bulletins was the importance of submitting a programme at tender stage. You can read up on that one, I think it was number 49 from memory.

So that goes into detail as to why the programme is so important at tender stage. You hit the ground running. That becomes, in effect, the first accepted programme as well.

So this one's option A, as Ben said, in data part one, in which case we've got an activity schedule to fill in. Obviously, there's an entry if it's option B for bill of quantities, but that's not relevant. So we'll take that out and we'll state where within our tender submission the activity schedule is. Which is kind of a segue to next month's webinar, which is going to be on activity schedules for A and C and when we change them and how we change them. So that's going to be fun next month.

There's various data entries for the schedule of cost components. So this is option A. Why not use the CECA rates? I'm guessing, David, you'd advocate using the CECA rates for equipment. Just give us a thumbs up from David there. So other rates are available, but why look further than the CECA rates for that?

There's an option to also add a percentage, a discount. So CECA rates may or may not be considered in your particular sector slightly high or maybe low possibly. So the contractor's got the opportunity to put a discount or an increase. Normally I'll see discounts on that rate. Again, this is going to be part of the competitive tender process. So the contractor's going to decide what offer they want to give, so it might be CECA rates less ten percent. That will be their decision as part of the tender submission.

And then lastly, matters for the early warning register. So from a contractor's perspective, why do I want to fill these in if it doesn't change the risk allocation? Well, all it's there is to sell to the client: look, we understand this type of work because here we've listed two or three items that could be a problem. We already think about them for you and we're going to help you avoid these becoming a problem on the project.

So again, it's a selling point that you understand NEC, you understand the job, and it's another reason why hopefully the client should be giving you the job when you submit the tender return. You've got to find a way of standing out. Obviously, price will be a way of standing out, but there's other ways: quality, rates. These are all going to be factors on which the job will be awarded, not solely on the bottom line price, although that will help if it's cheap. It's all about what's best value.

And looking at contract data part one really, when a contractor looks at it, is what is being said and why and what are the implications? So what do you read into that? What do you need to be aware of? So that's important.

And from the contract data part two, Glenn, you talked about the project manager is identified already, but it's up to the contractor to identify how many people they want to expressly sort of announce, as it were. But they're still in part of a competitive process. And this is a competitive process. The project manager is already appointed and known for the client but the contractor is not known because the competitive process hasn't finished, so there's another dimension to the world that the contractor's operating within.

And for instance, around the CECA schedule of rates as well. Those are a schedule of rates and the contractor has to use their skills and awareness of where those rates are in that market at any point in time as to what percentage to apply to that. So again, it's a competitive scenario, but you're looking for the contractor to convey that understanding of what the project's about. And you should be looking at the value that you're going to get from that as well.

The understanding will relate to the value that you as a client and the project manager will probably get as a consequence of that process. And certainly with the key persons bit, if the client's saying, you know, we want this treated seriously, then maybe that becomes part of your quality submission as to the seniority and credibility of that person you put forward.

But I do see this section typically being filled out by the client. So not completely, of course, they wouldn't put the names in, but they would populate those key person entries with job role, qualification and experience minimums and then allow the bidders to bid against them. So, you know, it's a little bit more structured, but nothing stopping you, perhaps in support of your quality submission, adding more commitments in there.

The important thing there is best value is not solely looking at the total prices. And again, have a look at the user guide volume three for a bit more guidance on selecting a supplier there.

34:00 - Client Considerations: Intervals, Payment Assessments, and Resources

Good. Another aspect is, yes, thinking about the rhythm of your business. And this will be a factor for a number of things that we're considering here. So Z clauses, you know, communication, time changes. You might have some client's internal governance that some things need a bit longer to go through.

Really a problem when you've got internal governance that contradicts the rules of the contract. So if you are stuck with internal governance, and I do say if, because sometimes people make up blockers in internal governance that don't exist. So do your valid internal governance that you've got to follow, make sure you align the Z clauses or the timescales rather accordingly.

So yes, if you need to change a timescale for internal governance then fine, but don't make it, oh, don't change it for two weeks to twelve weeks because just remember what other impact that's going to have.

Think about your intervals. So as a client you can now dictate, or you do need to dictate in data part one, how often are we going to have early warning meetings. Obviously they can be instructed by either party at any stage but at least the client can set out their stall as to how often they think they're going to need meetings. You can have this four weekly, two weekly, one weekly, but a minimum is going to be either four weekly or monthly. So at least once a period we're going to have a discussion about the early warnings.

And also think about your payment assessments, your forecast and defined cost. How often do you want these? You can set them accordingly.

Main option choice will have a dramatic impact on the resources required. So in very simple terms, there's a sliding scale as we go from A through to option E. There's an increase in the client's resources required to check the contractor's defined costs and things like that and application values. And also for the contractor there's an increase in their resources to be able to demonstrate the same thing.

So a big factor on the option choice is how well defined the scope is and also where do we want the cost certainty, and resources will be changing depending which option you've decided upon.

And scope, do we need additional information? Think about the format for programmes, the format for the applications, the quotations, any of these rules we can set within the scope. So really think about those things and make sure we're covering them.

And remember NEC4 has these two great user guides. Volume two is preparing an ECC contract and volume four is managing an ECC contract. So volume two is putting together the contract. It talks about how you fill in contract data. It's got a worked example of contract data in there as well with a commentary against it. So you can review that.

And then volume four, as well as the guidance notes in there, there's also some really useful downloadable elements. One of them is starting up an NEC contract and closing down an NEC contract. So you've got two checklists there in terms of starting up and closing down an NEC contract. So use them. There's a wealth of information available here to help you with these elements. You're not alone.

38:00 - NEC Digital Live Demonstration

Good stuff. Thank you, Glenn. And with that, we will hand over to Iain, who will take us through NEC Digital.

Right. Thank you for that. So just a quick introduction. I'm Iain Jeffries. I'm the Head of Products at Thomas Telford, the authors of the contracts. So I've been working there for a couple of months, but I have a lot of experience over a couple of years of developing this system with them.

So this is just a bit of background. This was launched a couple of months ago, so it's fairly fresh, but we're still going through development at the moment. What I'm going to show you today is using one of our development environments so that I can play around and do stuff and show you new features that are coming up as well.

So this is your kind of home page when you're in NEC Digital. And obviously I'm going to try and focus predominantly on the contract data journey. So let's go ahead and create a new contract. One of the things which we're working on at the moment is obviously the Y clauses are dependent on the region of the contract. So we're looking to add in the other regions that currently have their own bespoke Y clauses. But at the moment, I'm just going to leave it to default to UK.

Next thing is to then select the contract. We have all of the different contracts within the system. You have all twenty of the contracts in there to choose from, so I'm going to choose an ECC. And then we're going to go through and pick our options and you can see the journey down the side here to configure the contract.

So I'm going to pick option C. And then I've got to pick my disputes options. I'm going to pick W2. And then I can pick my options. And this is what the guys were thankfully telling you earlier in a preview for me, is that the system will stop you from selecting things which are not compatible with each other. So because I've selected option C, I can't now select X3 because that's only available with A and B.

And equally, if I wanted to select X12 and X20, if I select X20, X12 is then going to get greyed out as well. So make sure that you're picking things that are compatible with each other.

And then that's going to take me through to my contract data. And again, thank you to the team earlier. Essentially, this is now compiling all of the fields that you need to fill in and getting rid of all the ones that are not appropriate for this contract. So really make sure that you're filling in the appropriate data and not missing anything that's required. You can see all the things required with all the stars against them.

Within each of these fields, we've got various different field types. So we've got some which are kind of paragraph where you can format the text within it. Some of them just short line text. We've also got select fields where you can pick from a set of options. We've got details for companies and equally for individuals. We've also then got obviously there's various periods and frequencies throughout the contract. I can select a number and some units to go with it. And then, as we talked about, there's various lists and things.

Obviously, compiling contract data can be quite a lengthy task. You don't want to lose anything. So you can see this little cloud icon up here, the save status. If I start typing anything in there, you can see it then changes to a little wheel. It's now saved. So if I was to now leave this page and come back to it, I'm not going to lose anything that I've typed.

I can also, within here, share this contract with somebody else within my own organisation or with somebody else that I want to collaborate with outside. So if I was putting in someone else in my own company and they're already in the system, I can select them to share it with. And equally, if I want to invite someone in, I can invite them with an external email address.

And just to show you that this is compiling specifically the fields that are required, if I go to contractor's main responsibilities, we've got defined cost in here because we went for an option C. Now, if I'm trying to fill this out, Glenn mentioned that there's some very good guidance documents that the NEC has produced, but obviously you have to then flick between those. So what we've managed to do is pull out these specific sections that you're working in.

So if I wanted to see what it says in the guidance document about preparing a contract for the scope, I can just click that little dropdown and see the example entry as well as the high level detail of it.

Now, let's nip on to Z clauses for a minute. Within the system here we can add Z clauses directly to this contract. I can also have a Z clause library where I can type in some standard Z clauses I might want to use on multiple contracts.

One of the things we've heard people talk about problems with is being able to see where Z clauses are impacting within the contract. So we've added a way to be able to link to those clauses. If you type an @ symbol while you are drafting your Z clause, it'll start to give me all of the clauses which are listed. I can also in the system add a justification, so why I'm adding this Z clause. That doesn't actually come out through the official contract data, so it's not part of that, but it helps as a bit of guidance to understand why things might have been added.

If I then go to the clause navigator tab, I can see all of the core clauses, the main option clauses that were added. So again, this is only the specific clauses that are relevant for this contract based on the options that were selected. So if we go down to contractor's main responsibilities, providing the works, clause 20.1, I can see that there is a Z clause which is impacting this. And if I click that, it will show me what that Z clause is.

So it's going to help in terms of being able to see what's impacting the clauses, what the client has done to change those and where they are within the core clauses.

So now as a client, because I've published this, all of the fields are now locked. I can then invite a contractor to come into the system and view this. So type in their email address, type in a subject line, a little message for them to come and bid, send the invite. They will receive an email which will provide a link to the contract and also this information that was provided here.

So now when I come into the system as a bidder, I can see this is that published contract and it shows it's in draft status. Just want to assure everyone that when you are getting a contract, the client is the only one that can change things within the client side of that contract. But as the bidder on this, now that the client's invited me, this is in a draft state and the client cannot see any of this. They can see that I'm preparing something, but they can't see any of the data that I've entered into this until I actually publish it back to them.

I can see here who the client is. I can look at the contract data one that was provided. All of these are now locked so that I can't play around with what the client has provided me. I can look through all of those. And if I go now to contract data two, I can then start entering things. I've got exactly the same as the client was getting, so I've got all of the guidance in here. I've got all the validation on the fields.

If I go to a different section, so say I was in time and I wanted to quickly see what the client had entered in time, I could actually just click this associated contract data link. It then brings up that particular section of the contract data for me to review and look at while I'm submitting things.

We've also got the schedule for cost components or the short schedule, depending on what you are looking at for the contract. And again, it will make sure that the correct one of those is entered for you to put the data into.

So then I would publish that back to the client. The client will then get a notification that they've received bids on this and they can then review those bids within the system as well to see which of those they're going to progress with.

So I think at a quick sort of fly through, that's probably me done then. Thank you very much, Iain. So I would just say to invite people to put their questions in. But thank you very much for that enlightening presentation. And it certainly looks like a big leap forward in achieving both the compliance and rigour of filling this out whilst also holding our hands a little bit through some of those option choices. And it's great to see those other features as well around how you interact directly with the client there. So, yeah, really good stuff.

48:00 - Q&A: Remote Working, Programme Submission, and Subcontracts

So we have our first question. If you have a team of forty individuals identified to work on the contract and they have the working area as the site and named office, how are days working from home to be included in contract data part two in the working areas?

OK so a bit of a technical question. I think there was a practice note or a fourth bullet on this added to the people part of the schedule of cost components. It specifically talks about people who are not working on the site, but not involved in manufacturing or fabrication. So it's a bit of a technical one.

Yeah, that's basically it. So there is that extra bullet point which was an amendment to the schedule of cost components which basically says that people who are working away from the working areas but on behalf of the contractor for the project, for the works, that is defined cost. So that basically captures the remote workers scenario. It does need to go through the relevant test of reasonably incurred, but you wouldn't need to list your home as a working area to capture those costs. If you're working from home for the benefit of the project, then the cost of those people is captured through that provision. So it's a good question, but it's answered.

Any other questions? Yeah, if a contractor starts filling in their contract data part two and then decides not to bid, does the client see it? Iain, do you want to take that one? Yeah, absolutely not. So anything you do whilst you're in a draft state is completely separate from the client. They won't see any of that. So if you decide to not submit a bid, you just don't have to do anything. The client won't see it. They'll just see that the invited bidder hasn't submitted anything. So it's completely safe.

Perfect. Another question. Can the client specify the format that the programme should be submitted in? Glenn, over to you. Yes, within the scope. So we said before, a lot of things can be specified within the scope. The format of the programme is one of those things. So the client can specify within the scope what software should be used, what level of detail is expected, the formats for submission, whether it's a PDF or a native file, things like that. So yes, the scope is the place to capture those requirements.

Good. Do we have any more questions? I think we've got one more. Can you use NEC Digital for subcontracts as well? Iain? Yeah, absolutely. So within the system, we've got the engineering and construction subcontract as well. So you can use it for the full chain. It works in exactly the same way. You set up the subcontract, pick your options, fill in the contract data, and then you can share it with your subcontractors in the same way. So it covers the full supply chain.

Perfect. I think that's all the questions we have for today. So just to wrap up, some useful resources. Obviously, NEC Digital, which Iain has shown us today. The NEC user guides, volumes two and four, which Glenn mentioned. The CECA website for training and resources. And of course, you can catch up on all of our previous webinars.

53:00 - Useful Resources and Closing

Next month, as Glenn mentioned, we'll be looking at activity schedules for options A and C. So that should be a really practical session. Thank you everyone for joining us today. Thank you to David, Glenn, Iain, and of course Will in the background. And we'll see you next time. Goodbye.