The Conflict Avoidance Process

This is an early intervention process in construction and engineering projects to ensure that issues that are emerging are resolved by the parties involved, without recourse to costly and time-consuming dispute resolution processes like Adjudication. There is no doubt that we are seeing growing interest in CAP, and several projects are now seeing provisions embedded into Building Contracts so that the process will become the norm, and not the exception.

There has been excellent support for CAP from many of UK Trade organizations, and in Scotland, for example, there has been excellent support from Construction Industry Collaborative Voice. Construction organisations like SBF, SELECT, CECA, SNIPEF, BESA, NFRC, and the Finishes and Interiors Sector have all signed the Conflict Avoidance Pledge and have encouraged their membership to do likewise.

A number of the UK’s major contractors have signed the Pledge as well as leading UK services and finishes contractors.

So far over 475 construction organisations throughout the UK have signed the Pledge and members of NFRC are encouraged to do so, by following this link – conflictavoidance.org

Interest is growing in Wales, NI and Ireland as well.  

The whole ethos of this is to allow the parties to work proactively to avoid conflict and to encourage collaborative working and to work together to identify potential disputes and to work to resolve these. In most of the cases that have been carried out to date, this has involved the input of a seasoned industry consultant, drawn from any discipline, who will work with the parties and come up with a series of binding, or non-binding recommendations, and anecdotally the process has been very effective in resolving issues between the parties and in allowing them to carry on and complete the projects in a spirit of trust and mutual cooperation.

In addition to the above, the Conflict Avoidance Coalition Steering Group, comprises around 80 organisations who are involved in driving the process forward, and in particular are encouraging procuring authorities to have a provision for CAP in contracts. The Steering Group is reaching into all sectors including transportation, rail, nuclear, water and utilities, power, civils, health, education, defence, and commercial projects.

There have been some significant developments across the UK as well. CAP was successfully trialled by Transport for London on about 20 projects, leading to a significant reduction in the extent of contractual claims and the costs that the employer had incurred in defending these claims with their consultants and lawyers.

The Construction Playbook has endorsed the use of CAP, and the Scottish Government has also encouraged public sector procuring authorities to use conflict avoidance processes to get matters resolved. Discussions are underway with the Welsh Government, the NI Assembly and in Ireland.

It has recently been announced that the UK Parliament Refurbishment and Restoration Project will embed CAP into consultants and construction contracts and, as everyone knows, this is a massive project which will last for many years. The Environment Agency has also signed the Pledge and are encouraging their framework of contractors to do likewise.

It is encouraging to see the latest edition of the JCT 2024, whilst not referring to CAP, is however promoting the use of more collaborative techniques to deal with the resolution of construction disputes and projects. It is therefore very clear that momentum is growing across the UK, and members of NFRC are encouraged to sign the Conflict Avoidance Pledge and to implement the principles into their day-to-day activities and encouraging the use through their supply chain.

For further information please contact Gray Gibso, NFRC Policy and External Affairs Manager or Len Bunton, Conflict Avoidance Consultant.