218.328 CONSTRUCTION PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND ETHICS

Semester 2, 2024

ASSIGNMENT 2 – Consultancy and construction contract review

Total maximum marks for assignment: 100 marks.

Assignment weighting to the whole course: 40%

1 Background

1.1       You are engaged as a project management consultant by a client. The client is venturing into long term construction

project development in New Zealand primarily to be procured using the traditional procurement method where the client engages construction professionals as consultants using a consultancy contract and contracting with a contractor under a construction contract.

2          Assignment brief for the report

2.1       The client has instructed you to prepare a report covering two areas outlined below. You must provide convincing justifications in covering the two areas.

2.2       Firstly, the client wants to know which published standard form. of consultancy contract they should use to engage a multi-disciplinary team for professional services who will offer project management, architectural, engineering, and quantity surveying services for all their future projects in the most efficient way. The client wants you to compare the consultancy contracts published by the NZIQS and Engineering bodies in New Zealand. They do not want lawyers drafting consultancy contracts that are too long and too complicated and written in traditional legal language. They want a short, simple, modern, plain language contract which they can easily understand and administer.

The client expects you to recommend a simple contract that can be easily understood and used – if necessary by drafting a new one or through some changes to the existing consultancy contracts published by the NZIQS or Engineering bodies in New Zealand. Explain and justify your recommendations for the preferred contract and any changes you are recommending.

(Indicative word count guide: about 1,500 – 3,000 words. These are just a guide, not mandated word limits)

2.3       Secondly, the clients wants to know how the following provisions in NZS 3910:2023 will protect and favour them as the client, and what changes need to be made, if any, to better protect the Client.

(i)         the dual roles of the contract administrator and independent certifier named in the contract,

(ii)        the liability for design that may be undertaken by the contractor,

(iii)       the cost fluctuation provisions in the contract,

(iv)      the payment provisions,

(v)        the extension of time provisions,

(vi)       the subcontracting provisions,

(vii)     the termination provisions, and

(viii)    the dispute resolution provision.

(Indicative word count guide: about 1,500 – 3,000 words. These are just a guide, not mandated word limits)

2.4       You may refer to other contracts as comparative samples in developing your ideas for the report. As expected under a level 7 course, you are expected to think, review critically, and provide justification for your ideas.

2.5       Present your findings in the form. of a report. Include an executive summary as the first part of your report.

2.6       For some basic guidance on reports generally see:https://owll.massey.ac.nz/assignment-types/report.phpSpecifically for business reports see:https://owll.massey.ac.nz/assignment-types/business-report.php You will also see a sample of a structure of a business report here:https://owll.massey.ac.nz/assignment-types/business-report-structure.php These are just general samples not actual samples to be mandatorily used in preparing this report.

2.7       Indicative total whole report word count guide: about 3,000 - 6,000 words. These are just a guide, not mandated word limits.

3 Grouping

3.1       Do this assignment in groups of 4. This is the baseline hours of resource commitment expected. As discussed with those present during the first block course, there were a fair number of students who preferred to work in groups of 5 due to various reasons. You may also work in groups of up to 5. If on the other hand for any reason, you insist on working in groups of fewer than 4, you can also do that – even alone. Whichever number of group members, you must complete the assignment in its entirety – to the required quality commensurate with expectations of groupwork of 4 students.

3.2       State all students’ names on the cover sheet and a note to confirm or otherwise that all students distributed the workload fairly equally.

4          Assignment format and submission

4.1 Cover page

Your assignment must have the following information on a cover page:

4.2 Formatting

You must submit your assignment complying with the following:

File format:             MS Word or PDF

Font type and size:    Arial, 11 point (you can use different fonts sizes for the title, headings, and sub-headings).

Spacing:                1.5

Justification:               Block-justified (justified left and right) or only left-justified

Page number:            Insert page numbering in the report using the format page 1 of x where x is the total number of pages

Word count:               Insert total word count at the end excluding references and appendices