The main concern for adjudication continues to be the Government’s consideration of amendments to the Construction Act and the Scheme.
The DTI held a post consultation seminar at the DTI Conference Centre on 14 February, 2006, at which the minister, Mr Alun Michael gave the opening address.
The minister said that from the responses received from the Industry three questions arose for discussing at the conference:
1. Is there a need for improvement in payment practices?
Our greatest disappointment is the lack of any progress in relation to amendments to the Act. The Society has always seen no reason why oral contracts should be excluded from the adjudication provisions. It is often the most vulnerable that enter into oral contracts. An adjudicator should be as capable as anyone else to be able to determine what the parties agreed. We hope progress will be made before the end of the year.
The Society made its submission to the DTI following the Latham Review and this may be seen on the Society Website.
Adjudication has been an outstanding success in so far as it has largely solved the problem that it was introduced for, which was to redress the balance between payer and payee by in troducing an objective independent certification of the sum due instead of an often subjective decision by either an employee or representative of the payer.