Specialists upset Balfour Kirkpatrick

The Confederation of Construction Specialists' (CCS) campaign to expose subcontracts that fail to conform to the terms of the 1996 Construction Act has upset Balfour Kilpatrick (BK).

The CCS assesses main contractor non-standard subcontract forms and scores them against five main criteria. An assessment of BK's standard terms and conditions in November 1999 was given a -18% score by the CCS, which was particular critical of its terms of payment and its adjudication provisions.

The BK score was included in an article by Contract Journal on 21 May 2003 on the CCS's latest contracts survey, although the article made it clear that some of the contracts included were assessed in the early years of the Act (introduced in 1998).

Balfour's in-house solicitor has since written to the CCS to complain that the scoring does not reflect its current subcontract terms and conditions and that as such it was damaging to the company's reputation. The letter states: "As a result of that criticism, BK's terms and conditions were changed with effect from January 2002 and I am entirely satisfied that these conditions are beyond reproach in respect of the five key areas of the Act identified by the CCS."

CCS group director Adrian Gibbs has written back to explain that the old BK subcontract form had been retained in the survey as the latest edition available to it, but that he would review the updated subcontract if it was sent to him.

BK's solicitor responded by sending back a letter with just the changed clauses and a score of +87% using the CCS scoring system. 

Gibbs has since replied that he requires the full document before the CCS can re-assess BK's terms and conditions. BK has decided not to prolong the correspondence any further.