星空传媒

It鈥檚 a 鈥渕ust鈥�. Your building contract, your architect鈥檚 contract, and your labour-only putter-upperer contract must, shall, will contain a pukka adjudication clause. If it鈥檚 missing or half-baked, then parliament has laid down a canny rule: 鈥渢he scheme鈥� applies. The scheme is an invention of parliament that sits neatly with the Construction Act. It has worked only reasonably well. What I really mean is that it is daft in places, is longwinded, over-lawyered and should be consigned to the fire. The scheme for adjudication is a set of rules for, well, adjudicating. It is automatically imported, says parliament, into all construction contracts if the adjudication clause already there is duff or missing altogether. It鈥檚 been with us for 12 years.

Ah, but the Construction Act is now ousted by 鈥渘ew鈥� adjudication rules in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act (who on earth gives these names to acts of parliament?). The new adjudication rules can鈥檛 go live until the (now) old scheme is made to fit with the new act. The department for business, innovation and skills has published a draft. It is consulting you for your view. Here is my first idea. The old scheme has thousands of words, 26 paragraphs, 94 clauses and sub-clauses. Snag is, it is written for lawyers by lawyers. Let鈥檚 get rid of the gobbledegook 鈥� get rid of thousands of words, clauses and paragraphs.

Look, the