Building work

On first sight, new premises, complete with new carpeting, ceilings and freshly painted walls, might appear to be thoroughly attractive if not an ideal environment in which to work. But they must be seen purely as the shell of your agreed space plan. Once the fitting-out contractors move in you should be prepared for a great deal of upheaval. That new carpeting may have to be taken up, ceilings may have to come down, furniture and equipment may have to be moved and protected against the fall-out from dust and debris. In short, the premises you thought were ideal may have to be turned into a building site before they can be made to fit in to your plan.

Site works
The construction process will be noisy, dusty, traumatic and appear chaotic. Certain factors may have to be taken into consideration:

• The need for continuous working (it may not be possible to give unlimited and uninterrupted possession of the site)
• Access limitations (work may have to be done out-of-hours)
• Budget limits (there will be a set budget for the work)
• Noise disturbance (quiet areas may adjoin the work area)
• Dust nuisance (it may be necessary to seal off an area from the risk of dust penetration, particularly if sensitive equipment such as computers is present)

You must make the fitting-out contractor aware of, and he must agree these before he starts work.

Who will be on site?
The contract manager or construction manager will take overall responsibility for the work. He will not, however, be there all the time and he may well be running other projects at the same time. Any major comments or complaints should be addressed to the contract manager. The site agent will normally be on site all the time. He is responsible for all the staff on site and is usually a highly practical person, with a high level of skill and experience.

The tradesmen who work for the site agent will be specialists in one particular aspect of construction, say painting or flooring. It is unusual for tradesmen to stray outside their own discipline. Artists and craftsmen is a term used for tradesmen brought in by the employer to carry out certain aspects of the work in co-operation with the fitting-out contractor’s own tradesmen. You should be aware that this may cause delay, for which the fitting-out contractor may seek compensation.

The employer is the fitting-out contractor’s term for the client (that means you, as project manager).

The supervising officer person is authorised to give instructions to the fitting-out contractor this will be you, your professional project manager, quantity surveyor, designer or your architect.

The planning supervisor will make sure that health and safety aspects are considered under the CDM regulations.

Unless you are the supervising officer, resist all temptation to give instruction directly to the construction team. ALL such instructions must be given through the supervising officer – the designer, architect or other person appointed to be responsible for the work on site. You are paying the design team to take responsibility. If you override this, the team can no longer control time or progress, and the inevitable result is delay and extra cost to your organisation.

If an architect has been appointed the project will normally be run under an RIBA or JCT form of contract. This means that it will normally be his responsibility to authorise changes as the contract proceeds. These will be by means of Architects Instructions which are a legally recognised document, not only authorising the fitting-out contractor to vary the contract but also making you liable to pay for the extra cost of that work. Other contracts without an architect normally follow a similar procedure.

Payments
Again, under the RI

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