The Institution of Civil Engineers has announced its official endorsement of the NEC3 as the best practice contract form for construction projects, in the UK and overseas.
The ICE council recently decided to formally recommend the NEC3 in preference to the ICE Conditions of Contract.
ICE Director General Tom Foulkes said
"NEC3 meets the OGC Achieving Excellence in Construction (AEC) criteria, and is uniquely placed as a suite of contracts that can cater for all aspects of the procurement of projects and services, representing the best interests of public sector procurement.
"NEC also provides a wide range of support products and services which facilitate its implementation, covering consultancy, training, printed and electronic documents, licensing, conferences and seminars. It also provides a forum, the NEC Users' Group, for best practice sharing, which currently has nearly 500 corporate members representing a range of sectors."
In December 2008, the Public Sector Construction Clients' Forum (PSCCF) made a unanimous decision to move towards standardising procurement approaches through member organisations' use of the NEC3 forms.
NEC3 is already widely used at all levels of construction, including several high profile infrastructure projects such as the 2012 Olympics, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (High Speed 1) and the NDA nuclear decommissioning programme. In the public-sector the NEC3 has contributed to the improved delivery of construction projects, as part of the implementation of the AEC initiative.
The contracts have also been adopted extensively in the building sector, currently used by over 100 local authorities and for several large-scale construction projects including Crossrail, Building Schools for the Future, Decent Homes Initiative and the Al Raha Beach Development project in Abu Dhabi.