Civil Engineering Project Management (4th Edition)
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a tender is in the tenderer’s hands and he does not have to put a price to any of<br />
the items listed by the engineer in the preliminaries bill. He can mark them<br />
‘included’ meaning the cost of meeting the item requirements is included in his<br />
bill rates for the construction items, or he may enter a low figure.<br />
Items added<br />
A tenderer may sometimes add an item which is not in the list set out in the<br />
preliminaries bill. For instance, he might wish to separately price some especially<br />
expensive temporary works equipment, such as steel shuttering. However,<br />
the employer may have laid down in the Instructions to Tenderers that ‘no<br />
items shall be added to the bill of quantities’. The employer can refuse to consider<br />
such a tender; but if it is the lowest tender received the employer may<br />
decide nevertheless to consider it. This depends on the rules under which the<br />
employer himself operates, such as the standing rules of a public authority, or<br />
government regulations. Normally, however, an extra item or two added by a<br />
tenderer in the preliminaries bill would not be taken as invalidating a tender.<br />
Some contracts specifically allow this by writing in the preliminaries bill ‘Other<br />
items added by contractor…’. If a tenderer does add such items they should be<br />
discussed at tender negotiation stage to agree how they should be paid. For<br />
example, payment of a lump sum for steel shuttering might need to be agreed<br />
as a certain percentage on delivery, the balance on completion of its use.<br />
Method-related items<br />
Measurement and bills of quantities 191<br />
The ICE standard method of measurement of 1985 recognized that items of<br />
the foregoing kind could be added by tenderers. It called them ‘methodrelated’<br />
items, though they are not confined to construction methods but<br />
include organizational measures as well. The CESMM, 3rd edition, lists over<br />
forty such matters that a tenderer can add, covering such as – accommodation<br />
(offices, stores, canteen, etc.); services (water, power, site transport, welfare,<br />
etc.); plant and temporary works of many kinds, ‘supervision and labour’,<br />
and also permits a tenderer to add other method-related items not in those<br />
listed. All such method-related items have to be priced as lump sums, defined<br />
as either fixed or time related. If fixed, the lump sum is only payable when<br />
the work itemized is completed. If ‘time-related’ the payments are spread out<br />
over the time taken to achieve completion of the work covered by the item<br />
(see clarification in Section 16.4). Clearly some items, such as supervision, site<br />
transport, welfare, should not be designated as ‘fixed’ as there is no definable<br />
time when they could be said to be completed, other than the end of the contract.<br />
A tenderer has to define exactly what any item added by him covers,<br />
and whether it is fixed or time-related. Figure 15.2 shows some typical<br />
method-related items entered by a tenderer.