Records of Work Done (RoWDs)

It may seem self-evident that this will have been recorded as the Works progress however, small, seemingly insignificant issues that appear may sometimes manifest into major impacts on the Works.

Giving notice of something happening that wasn't envisaged is one thing but maintaining the records of activities relating to the same is something else.

Many times at the end of a Project, months or even years after something occurred, disagreements will ensue over the costs of the same purely because almost arbitrary dates are allocated and potential resources applied.

Had the issue been properly recorded at the time and submitted even only under a Transmittal on a daily basis, it would not only have become a contemporaneous record but would have allowed the other Party to challenge the contents therein if they were thought to be spurious i.e., saying their were 15 masons when only 10 were present, or that hours worked were 10 hours/day rather than the actual 9 hours/day.

If the records are kept and submitted daily, and remain unchallenged, it is difficult for the other Party many months/years later to challenge such submissions and the costs that can be ascertained from their hours and numbers.

Such a system can be introduced using Records of Work Done (RoWDs) but require a constant update to be maintained of the resources allocated and it must be taken into account that it might not be limited to just one issue.

This in essence will tie up the time of a junior member of staff (so long as such resouces have been allowed for, let alone allocated) for most of their time and it may well be that some/many of the issues will ultimately be absorbed by the Contractor (as will their cost) but such risk should be dismissed as outweighing the benefit that will come when it can be proven (in retrospect) that such activity/issue had a detrimental impact on the Project.

If anything, the above activities should encourage the staff members to intermingle more often and not isolate themselves into those that undertake works on site and those that undertake works in the site office as can tend to happen on sites these days.