Tony Gimple of Crisis Survivor is a recent ContractStore customer. His business is all about protecting yours from crisis and disaster. He was so pleased with ContractStore’s contracts that he sent us a useful document of his own. You can use it to check how well your business would cope with unforeseen disaster.
Take the Crisis Survivor Ten Minute Assessment and find out how your business would cope in a crisis.
The Government today announced a substantial package of help for up to 140,000 people who lost savings when their employer-sponsored pension schemes collapsed.
The Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) will be extended so that:
For more information you can go to the Department of Work & Pensions website:
A new Planning Bill was published last week by the Government. The main objective of the new law is to speed up the planning process for major infrastructure projects – new roads, airports, nuclear power stations etc. While it is true that any major project has a lot of hurdles to overcome, the new arrangements load the dice very heavily in favour of the developer. Under the Bill, the main features are:
The net result is likely to mean the Government will be able to push through any major development that they want to see: since the IPC will consist of individuals selected by the Government and they have to decide on applications primarily in accordance with Government policy as set out in a National Policy Statement, there will be little scope for objective criteria being applied and the existing cadre of qualified planning inspectors will be by-passed.
It is a sad irony that just when Governments should be reducing CO2 emissions, the British Government is paving the way for a procedure that is designed to allow major developments in roads, power stations and airports – no doubt beginning with a third runway at Heathrow.
It is not without relevance that the White Paper which is the basis for the new Bill was written by Rod Eddington, former CEO of British Airways, and contained a number of references to the long process that took place before Terminal 5 at Heathrow was given the go ahead. And the Government is currently ‘consulting’ on a third runway aimed at doubling the volume of air traffic at Heathrow.
To read the Bill you can go to http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2007-08/planning.html
This Monday,10th December, the Construction Industry Council (CIC)published the CIC Consultants’ Contract and Scope of Services. The contract is a new multi-disciplinary form for use across the UK by experienced clients (employers or design and build contractors) appointing teams of consultants on major building projects.
At ContractStore we have for some time had a professional appointment for sale on our website which has a similar objective and is designed for use by a client appointing a number of different consultants on a construction project. Our document is in a form that will be familiar to, and accepted by, most construction lawyers as well as being easily understood by clients, whether experienced or not. For more information, go to http://www.contractstore.com/consultant
We have not yet reviewed the CIC appointment but will do so soon. As anyone engaged on a construction project will know, each professional organisation tends to promote its own form for use by its members - architects, quantity surveyors, etc., and these forms tend to be very different in style and language as well as too protective of the professional. What a client needs is a set of appointments with broadly similar terms and conditions and the CIC form - like ours- should be helpful in this respect.
