Public Sector Contracts: Rebalancing Of Risk To Continue

The Government is to proceed with several measures aimed at delivering infrastructure under the National Development Plan ("NDP"), which we looked at here.

It was recently indicated that liability caps will be introduced to Public Works Contracts ("PWCs"), which we looked at here. The latest announcement now states that work will continue on rebalancing some of the risks borne by the contractors/consultants through capping their liability and also amending indemnity insurance requirements. There will be an increased focus on lifecycle costs in tender documentation, as opposed to construction costs, to allow public sector clients to focus on quality over the cheapest bid. It will be interesting to see how this is used to support efforts to decarbonise the built environment and support modern methods of construction.