Have you noticed the new phrase that has entered everyone’s vocabulary – the ‘contra charge’? As I settled a final account last week there was a classic example.

We are regularly novated into design and build projects so the final settlement is an encounter we face two or three times a year. As we sat down to undertake our familiar ritual a long list of additional cost items were laid at our door.  It was a list we had not seen before, one that had taken months to formulate. It had been started with intent at the start of the project and it was a list, it turned out, based on a fertile imagination and wishful thinking.

I know that as architects we are clearly the experts but to expect us to produce perfection in everything is a tall order.  As I put forward the argument that there are bound to be a couple of co-ordination issues on a multi million pound project I was advised that a clash in the location of the smoke detection unit had cost £250, and I was expected to pay for it. As I suggested that we were expected to work at the same level and standard as any other equivalent professional, another item and a further £250 was aimed in my direction.

‘No problem,’ responded the contractor, ‘You have insurance for that sort of thing don’t you?’

As the day progressed the list of small items began to add up.  What a coincidence, I thought, as the level of contra charge began to equal the sum of our claim for additional fees for changes to the project.

‘What has happened to project design contingency?’ I asked. It certainly isn’t bound for anything the architect has done.  In fact with the level of reduction in tender values that design and build contractors seem to be offering lately I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there is no contingency at all in any of their bids, and that they intend to make up the shortfall in claims against the client, the sub contractor or the consultant team.

If it goes on like this the whole adversarial approach to construction will be back with us and we will have lost everything we learned from Egan and the effort we have all put into the Rethinking Construction programme.