Contents
Making the document understandable
- Do not use jargon or legal terminology.
- Do not use vague terms that may cause uncertainty and leave room for multiple interpretations.
Accuracy across the RADs
- Do not repeat information from other RADs and / or from external publications, including publicly available reports or reports that could be made publicly available, and use cross references rather than repeating text.
- Do not give open ended instructions, which cannot be accurately priced in advance / at time of tender.
Consistency in style and format
- Do not use terminology that might have alternative meanings in differing forms of contracts or which has specific associations within a specific contract type.
- Do not refer to companies or suppliers.
- Do not use statements about what to do when things go wrong.
- Do not use conditional expressions, i.e. the use of requirements that are conditional on something else happening. It can transfer risk to the Overseeing Organisation.
- Do not prescribe procedures or assign organisational or personnel roles, functions or responsibilities – it can transfer risks which should be owned by other parties back to the Overseeing Organisation.
- Do not tell the Contractor how to do the work. Instead, instruct what the outcomes should be and leave the Contractor to decide how to get to those outcomes.
- Do not describe the Overseeing Organisation’s internal processes or procedures, tasks or obligations.
Health, safety, and wellbeing
- Do not transfer health and safety liability onto the Overseeing Organisation.
- Do not tell the Contractor how to undertake the works from a health, safety, and wellbeing perspective or give the Contractor health, safety, and wellbeing advice.
Subjective language
- Do not use subjective terms such as:
- Adequate
- As appropriate
- As soon as possible
- Practicable / Reasonably practical (only to be used when referring to health, safety, and welfare requirements as it has a legal definition, however mentioning health, safety, and wellbeing in the RADs should be kept to a minimum and the law relied upon)
- Ideally
- It is hoped that
- Do not write expressions that are requirements by stealth: …something needs to be…
- Write the statement as a requirement.
- Do not write requirements that do not explain what outcome is expected: …specialised advice should be sought…
- They are impossible to evaluate compliance with.
- Do not provide a hierarchy of requirements: …more important than… or …more relevant than…
- They are impossible to defend in the event of a future incident / noncompliance and are completely subjective to each individual or organisation.
- Conjunctive terms with expanding advice are difficult to defend in disputes as they usually do not have sufficient rigor to be explicit (anything implied is open to interpretation): …but not limited to… or …as a minimum…
- Do not place quality, cost, or schedule obligations on the Overseeing Organisations:
- To the satisfaction of the Overseeing Organisation
- Subject to the approval of the Overseeing Organisation
- Submitted to the Overseeing Organisation for acceptance
- As directed by the Overseeing Organisation
- Agreement with the Overseeing Organisation
- They are impossible for the Contractor to price and transfer risk to the Overseeing Organisation, who are not best place to manage it (and the Contractor / Consultant is being paid to manage it).
- Contractually ambiguous expressions:
- Care must / shall / should be taken
- Account must / shall / should be taken
- Attention must / shall / should be taken
- Consideration must / shall / should be given
- Preference must / shall / should be given
- Careful judgment is required
- It must/ shall / should be considered
- When required
- Should have regard to
- Likely to be justified
- Must / Shall / Should ensure
- These do not enable the Overseeing Organisations to verify whether a requirement or a specific recommendation has been followed.