Preliminaries in construction

Revision as of 15:11, 11 January 2016

Preliminaries (or 'prelims') are part of the tender documents prepared by (or on behalf of) the client in order to seek a price from contractors for carrying out construction works.

Preliminaries provide a description of the project that allows the contractor to assess costs which, whilst they do not form a part of any of the package of works required by the contract, are required by the method and circumstances of the works.

The Code of Estimating Practice published by the Chartered Institute of Building describes preliminaries as, '...the cost of administering a project and providing general plant, site staff, facilities, and site based services and other items not included in the rates”.

Preliminaries should not be confused with 'preambles' which set out things such as tendering procedures, that will not affect the contractor's price.

Preliminaries may contain:

• A general summary.
• Method statements.
• Pre-construction information.
• Details of any alternative options to be put forward by tenderers.
• A description of any planning conditions or other conditions that may affect the work to be carried out by the contractor.
• A description of any outstanding statutory approvals that may fall to the contractor to satisfy.
• Party wall requirements or other agreements with, or rights of, neighbours (such as rights to light).
• Any emergency services obligations.
• A description of the reporting information that the contractor will be required to submit (often on a monthly basis) describing construction progress (including a detailed critical path programme, key performance indicators and earned value analysis). NB See construction progress reports for more information.
• A description of the commissioning strategy, separating setting to work and balancing tasks from independent verification by the consultant team.
• Relevant reports (such as soil reports).
• Perhaps an information release schedule.
• Quality management procedures.
• Labour relations.
• A declaration of non-collusion.
• Schedules of mock-ups, testing and samples required from the contractor.
• The method of sub-contracting.
• Requirements for insurance, performance bonds, warranties and product guarantees (for the contractor and sub-contractors).
• Requirements for the operating and maintenance manual (the client's facilities management team may wish to comment on this).
• Requirement for progress photos to be taken on site during construction and off-site during fabrication.
• Dates for partial possession.
• Collaborative practices.
• Building information modelling (BIM) requirement and protocols (including requirement for BIM in sub-contracts).
• Site waste management plan.
• Contractor's site preliminaries, such as; staff, welfare provisions, site offices, plant, site waste clearance, water, electricity, site offices, furniture, ICT and consumables, rates, protection of work, protective clothing, site transport, setting out, building control fees and so on.

NB The Common Arrangement of Work Sections for Building Works (CAWS) sets out detailed categorises for preliminaries. Although this system is currently undergoing considerable change, with CAWS being incorporated into Uniclass, Uniclass being replaced with Uniclass2 and SMM7 being superceded by the New Rules of Measurement (NRM). See CAWS for more information.

Find out more

Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki

• Attendance.
• Building Information Modelling.
• Collaborative practices.
• Common Arrangement of Work Sections (CAWS).
• Construction progress meetings.
• Construction progress reports.
• Information release schedule.
• Method statements.
• New Rules of Measurement.
• Party wall act.
• Pre-construction information.
• Provisional sums.
• Site waste management plan.
• Sta
• Tender documents.

External references

• nbs definition of preliminaries.
• PACE Guidance on the Appointment of Consultants and Contractors P404.