Have you used the ICE Conditions of Contract?

[Unitof1]

Its arrived and the guide comes tomorrow. All the way from Southampton University Library. 28 day loan and may be recalled at anytime.

[Unitof1]

Well I have gone to the protracted trouble to read the wonderful contract and guide. Not as bad as thought. I was hoping for a few moral dilemmas, the ever present paranoid sense of why doesnt anybody ever agree with me, maybe I should growup but that Contract is beyond a cert a load of beyond aup rubbish. Where do you want to start? It certainly does not relate to my world nor any archaeologist/digger that I have come across and I have met my fill of left wing veggie munchers. Defect Corrections! Somewhere along the food chain there must be projects where there are archaeologists and engineers saying, Do we get the wonderful contract out for this one.

Come to me, I give you good price. No worries.

There must be lawyers versed in contract law that could have been hired by the Ifa to point out the utter stupidities of this pile of tosh. Did the Ifa have lawyers on board for the negotiation? From the names on the panel there is nobody there with any commercial credentials whatever. They are civil servants. As far as I can see the so-called Engineer has guaranteed themselves a handling charge over archaeology of probably between 15 to 25% and a 10% to the consultants. You ifa t**ts.

Sorry that was a general (and edited) warm up.

First observation in mockery. There does not seem to be an example presented of a standard contract between the Employer and the thing called a Consultant. What would one of those contracts look like?

(Moderator edit: foul language replaced with asterisks and highlighted in bold) Austin

[1man1desk]

Dear Mr Unit,

All I can say after reading that outpouring of bile is that you clearly haven't understood either the purpose of the document, or the principles on which it is based, or any of the detailed content.

I am particularly amused by your characterisation of the named panel members as 'a bunch of civil servants' 'without any commercial credentials whatever'. Just to be clear, the people we are talking about are all named in the 'acknowledgements', and they include the following:
- the head of procurement for Transco;
- a leading solicitor in the field of company and contract law;
- an expert on construction contracts who has published books on the field;
- the managing director of one of the largest commercial archaeological contracting units in the country;
- an archaeologist who occupies a senior position in a multi-disciplinary consultancy;
- a successful self-employed archaeologist and heritage consultant.

The supervisory group included another senior archaeological consultant, and the head of a successful geophysical survey contracting firm.

Of course, none of those have commercial credentials to match yours.

quote:There does not seem to be an example presented of a standard contract between the Employer and the thing called a Consultant.

Such a thing is not presented in the Contract because it is not relevant - it would be a separate contract. However, it might take any of several forms, and I think I have explained about them in previous posts on this thread.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[BAJR Host]

Thanks 1 mna for a very considered response - and informative. In the face of bile, you did well to be calm... I am becoming less than calm, and worry that such posts as we have seen from the Uo1 have the potential to muddy waters rather than clarify, and to make this forum a place where people think twice about posting.

Uo1 I don't have the time or energy to keep an eye on you.. either try to be reasonable or say goodbye.

"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[Fishslice]

As far as I can see the so-called Engineer has guaranteed themselves a handling charge over archaeology of probably between 15 to 25% and a 10% to the consultants. You ifa t**ts.


[/quote]

Where in the contact is this guarantee?

[Unitof1]

The loads of wonga guarantee is not in the wonderful contract, but the ENGINEER is involved in all the other ICE contracts with somebody called the EMPLOYER. The ENGINEER does things for the EMPLOYER, totally and without a consultant, for which the EMPLOYER gives money to the ENGINEER at various rates that are very carefully detailed in the contract with the EMPLOYER. In almost all of the ENGINEERS contracts there is THE MAN. WHAT is interesting is in the wonderful contract with anything to do with archaeology are derived from contracts originally based on ground works and minor works, THE MAN is never involved. For the wonderful contract the ENGINEER, really design engineer, becomes the EMPLOYER and where you might imagine the situation of somebody called the ARCHAEOLOGIST, like where the ENGINEER was located in all the contracts with THE MAN, is affectivly positioned a so called consultant archaeologist. An example of sticking on a consultant engineer in to the engineers contract with the MAN does not appear to occur in any other ICE contract. Each level is being paid wonga by the level above to administer the level below often by a percentage of costs.

The consultant also has to be named and they can also name replacements and if any of the multitude don’t bother to turn up for work, there are clauses in the contract to take care of that so that it is not too much of a problem for them. This is in a contract in which there is nothing called an ARCHAEOLOIST in the whole caboodle, which could be more to an ifa RAO design than a sinister engineer rip off. The consultant sits over, at the bottom of the food chain, someone called the contractor. Might be you or anybody who can be bothered to call them an archaeologist.

I would be unconcerned about a consultant and 1man has pointed out that the one that was on the committee was self-employed.

I have read the wonderful contract from my point of view. Is it of any relevance to me, in what I do. It doesnt seem to be.

In the committee that set up this obscure piece of wonderful contract, as 1man has pointed out, there were three representatives for the ICE side, a lawyer on contract law, then a expert author on construction contracts and then along for the ride someone from a Gas supply/distribution company who was good at procurement (expert shopper?- Not exactly a design engineer, more somebody who buy things (not people)). I would suggest that the point of negotiation was lawyer based with an example from an obscure gas brokerage point of view. In terms of the archaeologists on a pipeline there is three or more levels of contract hierarchy before you got to the EMPLOYER. Engineering does not even get involved.

Sorry numeralUnOman,. still sorting out my shrubbery. Currently trying to get hold of a NEC 'Professional Services' contract. ICE not good enough. Consultants are without president in ice and I have to say that who ever got them included in the wonderful contract must have had a reason.

[BAJR Host]

Don't be a smart-ass... it just means a final warning and the potential of a 3 month cooling-off forum ban


"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[gorilla]

Why only three months?

:face-stir:

[BAJR Host]

tempting

"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[1man1desk]

To engage in the rather thankless task of addressing Mr Unit's comments:

Once again, you have not understood what is in the Contract.

You are correct in one thing - all the other ICE contracts have a role for the Engineer, which does not appear in the Archaeological contract, while the archaeological contract has a Consultant, which does not appear in the other ICE contracts. That is very simple to explain - the term 'Engineer' was changed to 'Consultant' for this particular contract; apart from the terminology, the role is the same.

You appear to be concerned about the lack of anyone called 'the Archaeologist'. That is quite simple too - if the term 'Engineer' had been changed to 'Archaeologist', there might have been confusion with the 'Contractor', who will of course also be an archaeologist.

The main point here is that both the 'Consultant' and the 'Contractor' are archaeologists, and their roles are clearly defined. Notwithstanding all of your comments, the roles in the archaeological contract are identical to those in the engineering contracts.

In all Contracts, the person who provides the service is called the 'Contractor'. A contract for building works, gardening works, plumbing works or flying to the moon would all refer to the 'Contractor', not the 'builder', 'gardener', 'plumber' or 'astronaut'. Why should archaeological works be any different?

As for the rest of your comments - I'm afraid I can't respond, because I couldn't extract enough meaning from them, with one exception:

quote:that uNitof1 is a t**w

- I'm not sure that I can guess what a t**w is, but it sounds like it ought to be an accurate description. (Mr Hosty - I hope this is ok on the AUP, I'm only quoting the man himself!





1man1desk

to let, fully furnished