The IMWO Initiative on Sound Procurement and Timely Payment

Responsibilities across the project

Marine projects need credible cost assumptions, defined working conditions and executable payment arrangements. Owners purchase delivered works. Contractors commit plant, people and supply chains. Each party should carry its agreed responsibilities and make the decisions needed to keep the project and its account moving.

IMWO proposes the following actions, informed by the six investigations in this series. Adopting organisations can incorporate them into procurement documents, contracts and management procedures, subject to their approvals and applicable law.

1. Owners and project fund managers: fund the payment timetable

Before tendering, align the funding source, availability dates and approval route with the proposed payment obligations. Where a gap appears, resolve the funding or procurement arrangement rather than leaving the site to absorb it.

Provide existing ground, survey, traffic and disposal information with its date and known limitations. Address material gaps through investigation, clarification or a defined adjustment mechanism.

Resource measurement, valuation and certification. Name authorised decision-makers and deputies. Process undisputed sums separately from disputed items and identify retention whose release conditions have been met.

Adoption records: funding and payment route; authority schedule; due-payment and retention register.

2. Procurement and evaluation teams: establish why the price works

State the abnormal-low-bid procedure and required evidence in the procurement documents. Examine principal production rates, available plant, transport and disposal, key subcontracts, mobilisation and funding. Give bidders an opportunity to explain real efficiency advantages. Record specific reasons for acceptance or rejection.

Compare prices on consistent scope, quantity, tax and risk bases. Value additions through their proper procedure and report them alongside the original package. Review claimed savings against equivalent-scope final results.

Adoption records: clarification and verification assessment; additional-work pricing basis; final procurement review.

3. Engineers, designers and measurement bodies: make recognised quantities reproducible

Define survey datums, boundaries, tolerances, overdepth, re-siltation treatment and sectional arrangements. Connect measurement resources to the construction sequence and operating requirements.

Retain original data and processing rules. Explain quantity adjustments. Change records should connect a valid instruction to its technical scope, quantity and valuation status. Sign within the authority actually delegated.

Adoption records: joint survey and processing record; quantity-adjustment explanation; instruction and authority register.

4. Main and dredging contractors: approve real production and cash exposure

Retain cost versions for material price changes. Support production revisions with plant, material and work-cycle evidence. Any output increase used to approve a price concession must have an engineering basis.

Approve cash forecasts and delay scenarios together. Verify peak funding, facility conditions and downstream amounts falling due. Show unapproved changes, claims and anticipated future work separately.

Update resources and cost following omissions, resequencing or interface changes. Disclose subcontract scope, measurement, standby and payment conditions, and procure against independently prepared offers.

Adoption records: cost-version comparison; funding stress test; upstream/downstream term comparison; supplier reconciliation.

5. Specialist contractors, plant owners and suppliers: price defined conditions

Price independently against the plant and people to be committed. State quantity basis, access, guaranteed-volume conditions, hire commencement and cessation, standby, fuel and mobilisation responsibilities. Obtain valid agreement when the pricing unit, equipment or scope changes.

Reconcile operating records and receipts during the campaign. Retain invoices, notices and balances. Record the supplier's own breakdown or performance failures as accurately as externally imposed interruption.

Adoption records: conditional quotation; plant-availability and operating log; allocated-receipts account.

6. Finance, guarantee and insurance providers: distinguish debt from forecast revenue

Within authorised and confidential arrangements, examine payment conditions, certification, assignability and dispute status. Assess confirmed receivables separately from anticipated changes. Align facility maturity, drawdown and recourse with project cash requirements.

Show financing charges, guarantee costs and retention exposure separately. Financing supports delivery; the payer's existing obligations remain governed by the contract and applicable rules.

Adoption records: debt-status verification; facility and maturity match; cost and recourse terms.

7. Auditors, regulators and dispute bodies: identify the issue and responsible decision

Examine expenditure and payment across the contract lifecycle. Distinguish additional scope, incorrect valuation and overdue payment. Identify the responsible entity and next action for sums meeting payment conditions; deal with disputed matters through the appropriate procedure and with proper opportunities to respond.

Keep contractual interpretation, quantity findings, enforcement and actual receipt identifiable. Applicable complaint, adjudication, arbitration and court procedures should have accessible requirements and deadlines.

Adoption records: classified issues; responsible officers and action dates; dispute and enforcement status.

8. Industry bodies and IMWO: publish methods and verifiable cases

Publish traceable cases, calculation tools and comparisons of contract practice. Preserve versions, corrections and relevant responses. Date substantive updates and state what evidence has changed.

Use defined fields for payment-performance analysis. Check applicability and data quality before aggregation. Protect confidential and personal information, obtain necessary permissions and verify facts before publishing an assessment of a company.

Keep industry exchange focused on technical methods and payment practice. Businesses must determine their own prices and bids. Do not organise common minimum prices, margins, market allocation or exchanges of competitors' future bidding information. The UK government's competition guidance illustrates these restrictions; the applicable local regime governs each activity.^[1]

Adoption records: versioned evidence; statistical definitions; correction log; information-use permissions.

First application: one project, three registers

An adopting organisation should name a responsible officer and establish the cost-and-risk, change-and-measurement and payment-and-retention registers for one project. Use actual records to create the opening position. Agree review frequency and internal escalation dates; legal and contractual deadlines take priority.

At the first review, check the supporting case for low prices, the stage holding each unpriced change, the status of due sums, satisfied retention conditions and the allocation of downstream payments. Assign an action owner and date to every unresolved item. Confirm closure against evidence and receipts.

Amounts already due and undisputed should be paid in accordance with applicable obligations. Project and fund-management performance reviews should include whether that happened.