NEC on Maintenance and Term Contracts

An NEC maintenance contract is normally the Term Service Contract (TSC), where a Service Manager runs a service over a Service Period and specific work is called off by Task Orders. Works-contract habits don't carry over well: there is no single Completion Date and no Key Dates, and the compensation event numbers are different.

This page covers practical points under the NEC4 TSC. For the form itself, see the Term Service Contract and the ECC vs TSC comparison. It is part of the guide to managing NEC contracts. Maintenance can also be let under other NEC forms, so check which one you have.

What's different from a works contract

Topic	NEC4 ECC	NEC4 TSC
Who administers	Project Manager and Supervisor	Service Manager
What it's on	The works, on a Site	The service, on the Affected Property
Time	Completion Date and Key Dates	Service Period and Task Completion Dates
Programme	Accepted Programme	Accepted Plan, plus any Task Order programmes
Prices	Activity Schedule or Bill of Quantities	Price List
Quality	Defects to a defects date, with correction periods	No defects date; a notified Defect is corrected quickly enough to limit harm
Main Options	A to F	A, C and E

Event numbers that change

Don't quote ECC numbers on a TSC. Here are the ones that people get wrong most often.

Event	ECC 60.1	TSC 60.1
Access not given	(2)	(2)
Task Order is late	None	(4)
Instruction to stop or not start	(4)	(5)
Others out of time	(5)	(6)
Late reply	(6)	(7)
Change to the Affected Property	None	(11)
Other Client breach	(18)	(15)
Quotation for a proposed instruction not accepted	(20)	(17), which also covers a Task not being instructed

Running Task Orders

A Task Order is the Service Manager's instruction to carry out a Task, with the work and dates described and any delay damages stated (19.1). The Service Manager can ask for a quotation first. Task Orders explained looks at the mechanism.

• Use a Task Order register. Log number, Task, dates, Price List items, quotation if any, Task Completion Date, actual completion, cost, and any linked events.
• Check Task Orders against the Price List. Items with no rate need a quotation or a discussion before the order goes out.
• Date them properly. A Task Order reaching the Contractor after the starting date it gives is itself a compensation event.
• Look for themes. A single order might be small, but a pattern of late issue over a year can be costly. Report on it.

Reactive work and response times

Many term contracts include reactive work with response times set in the Scope. Those times are for the Scope to define, as the core clauses don't have them. Check what happens on a miss: often it is a KPI effect under Option X20, not a contract breach with a money remedy, and sometimes it's both.

A fictional example. A term contract for drainage on a school estate requires attendance at urgent blockages within four hours. The Contractor's record shows a median response of three hours, but ten callouts per quarter take over four. Under Option X20, the Contractor reports on this at the set intervals (X20.2), and proposes how to improve where it forecasts a missed target (X20.3). Lost incentive payments may be the main consequence, unless the Scope or Z clauses add more.

Other points for a long term

• Keep the Accepted Plan live. The plan is revised on the same pattern as an ECC programme (32.1, 32.2). A forgotten plan quickly becomes useless for assessing any event.
• Know the Affected Property. Getting it wrong at tender may cost you for years, and a change to it is its own compensation event. Keep the asset list under change control.
• Price change. Long terms can bring big inflation risk. Option X1 can help where the Parties have chosen it. See Option X1.
• Service Period extension. NEC4 TSC Option X23 deals with extending the Service Period. It needs a clear set of conditions from the start.
• Stay on top of event notification. Small events are easy to ignore on a term contract and yet add up. A monthly review keeps them from going out of time. The unamended period is eight weeks in the NEC4 and NEC3 TSC (61.3), and four in the NEC4 TSSC.
• Keep in step with subcontractors. The Term Service Subcontract uses the same numbers as the TSC, but periods may differ, so build them into your tracker.

For highways and water networks, the highways and water pages cover practical sector points.

Related guides

• Managing NEC Contracts: A Practical Guide
• The Most Common NEC Mistakes
• NEC on Energy and Nuclear Projects
• NEC on Building Projects

This guide is general information in our own words, not legal advice. Your contract and its Contract Data always govern. NEC, NEC3 and NEC4 are trade marks of Thomas Telford Ltd; Contract Status is not affiliated with or endorsed by NEC.