Assessing the New United Kingdom Protocol for Dealing with Delay and Disruption Steve Scott 1 ; Richard Anthony Harris 2 ; and David Greenwood 3 Abstract: The recent publication of the U.K. Society of Construction Law’s protocol for dealing with delay claims has finally provided a good opportunity to make progress with a continuing difficulty that besets most substantial construction projects. The protocol makes recommendations on the issues that arise when delay claims must be managed. A report of recent research is conducted to test how U.K. professionals understand some of these issues and how they deal with them in practice. The conclusions show some areas of good agreement, notably in the way that early completion should be handled and the way that prolongation costs should be assessed. There are, however, areas that give rise to some concern. The methodology ‘‘time impact analysis’’appears not to be well used in practice, and it also seems that contractors will have difficulty with the position taken on float ownership and concurrent delays. DOI: 10.1061/ASCE1052-39282004130:150 CE Database subject headings: Claims; Delay time; Time factors; Dispute resolution; United Kingdom. Background Numerous studies have shown that construction projects have a tendency to suffer from delay National Economic Development Council NEDC for Building 1983; NEDC for Construction 1988; Bresnen et al. 1990; Scott 1993a,b; Harris 2000. Such de- lays carry potential losses for all parties: for the employer client, owner through loss of use, and for the contractor and subcontrac- tors through their prolonged presence on-site. As a result, con- tracts generally contain mechanisms to allocate the liability for delays and compensate for their impact, including clauses that deal with liquidated damages, extensions of time, and the reim- bursement of prolongation costs. Although the approach to deal- ing with these matters will be governed to some extent by any legal precedent set in the country concerned, the issues that must be addressed are universal and complex, and the extent of the problem is recognized to be great. This is confirmed in a recent study by Thompson et al. 2000 who compared recent innova- tions to manage disputes in both the U.S. and the U.K. They found both construction industries to have similar working envi- ronments and to be plagued with adversarial attitudes, a rising numbers of claims, and high litigation costs. The efficient and effective resolution of a delay claim will rely upon the ability to quantify a given delay and to evaluate its causation and overall effect. Such claims have the potential to become disputes either about the validity of the claim or about the extent of the money/time actually claimed Duncan-Wallace 1995. Although much has been written about the issues affecting such claims, it is clear that problems remain due to the inad- equacy of existing contractual mechanisms in dealing with the complexity of the situations encountered Yogeswaran et al. 1998; Harris 2000. Mechanisms for Assessing Delay Claims Perhaps the most difficult aspect that must be dealt with when assessing claims for extensions of time is the mechanism used to show the impacts of various delays on project completion. At the heart of most of these mechanisms is the categorization of delays as culpable, excusable, and compensable Kraiem and Diekmann 1987. One complication is that not all excusable or compensable delays will attract an extension of time; this should only be the case if they have a critical effect on the overall program sched- ule. In the case of a delay to a noncritical activity, no extension should normally be available, that is, of course, unless other changed circumstances cause the noncritical activity to become subsequently critical. These criteria may seem relatively straightforward, but they are not. For example, the relationship between planned and actual progress is a fluid, not a static affair. It could be argued that assessing the impact of a particular event on an ‘‘as planned’’ program is unrealistic, because the durations and relationships of subsequent activities may have altered. A 10 week delay on a planned critical path might not mean a 10 week delay to the project. Indeed, there would normally exist a contractual and common law duty to mitigate the situation by endeavoring to recoup some of the lost time see Yogeswaran et al. 1998. Much has been written on this and other topics within the area, with many authors offering their own solutions to the complications that emerge. Knoke and Jentzen 1994, Bordoli and Baldwin 1998, and Kartam 1999 are recent examples, and Wickwire et al. 1989 indicate the legal position in the U.S. In essence, the main options for assessing the impact of delays are 1 Senior Lecturer, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Univ. of Newcastle upon Tyne, Claremont Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom. 2 Researcher, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Univ. of Newcastle upon Tyne, Claremont Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom. 3 Associate Dean, School of the Built Environment, Northumbria Univ., Ellison Place, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, United Kingdom. Note. Discussion open until June 1, 2004. Separate discussions must be submitted for individual papers. To extend the closing date by one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing Editor. The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and possible publication on January 22, 2003; approved on August 21, 2003. This paper is part of the Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Edu- cation and Practice, Vol. 130, No. 1, January 1, 2004. ©ASCE, ISSN 1052-3928/2004/1-50–59/$18.00. 50 / JOURNAL OF PROFESSIONAL ISSUES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION AND PRACTICE © ASCE / JANUARY 2004