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DELAY ANALYSIS IS NOT BORING OR DIFFICULT. No, really it isn’t. True, there are
lots of techniques and some of the jargon has an air of mystique, but it can be made
more user-friendly. First let me tell you a story (no names are mentioned, because its
fictional):
The legal and expert fees came to £500,000 by the time someone noticed, at which point
the lawyer and the expert had to start all over again. The contractor was not amused.
If you want to avoid that sort of mess, you need to know about delay analysis techniques
and how they connect with contractual provisions on delay and extensions of time. Here
is my guide to four commonly used techniques:
As-planned impacted
This technique takes the contractor’s planned programme as the base line. It then
introduces the effects of delays for which the employer has adopted the risk under the
contract. Once these events have been “impacted”, it shows their predicted effect on
completion. In theory the contractor should be entitled to an extension of time for their
effect and will be responsible for any difference between the impacted and the actual
completion date.
This type of analysis is highly theoretical. One occasionally sees cases where it bears
no relationship to what the contractor did on site. It predicts the effect of each event
rather than looking at what happened. That means this technique is only suitable if the
contract entitles the contractor to an extension for likely delay as well as for actual delay,
as with the JCT forms.
However, this method takes little account of what happens in between each “snapshot”
so other factors causing delay can be overlooked.
As-built but-for analysis
Also known as collapsed as-built analysis, this system starts by identifying the actual
sequence of the works. Events that are at the employer’s risk under the contract are
identified and extracted from the as-built programme to show how long the work would
have taken, but for the events at the employer’s risk. A common criticism of the method
is the subjective element involved in determining the critical path through the as-built
programme. On the other hand, it seems to get closer to the facts than other methods.
None of these techniques is perfect. All involve different degrees of artificiality. Once
you recognised that, its just a matter of knowing your onions – and reading the contract.
In my next article I’ll look at why nobody can agree which of these techniques to use.
Nick Lane
Postscript:
Nick Lane is a lawyer specialising in construction law at solicitor Travers Smith:
nicholas.lane@traverssmith.com