As it is now 10 years since the Adjudication Reporting Centre, at Glasgow Caledonian University was launched, it was onlyfitting that on the 12th of June 2008 the launch preview of the latest ARC report was held there.
With a broad spectrum of professionals in the audience, the speakers outlined the latest trends in Adjudication as well as sharing some of their experiences of this process. The speakers were: Peter Kennedy, Dean of The School of the Built & Natural Environment; Janey Milligan, Managing Director of Construction Dispute Resolution; Lisa Cattanach, Contract Consultant at CDR & Colin Fraser, a partner at UK Law Firm McGrigors. Peter Kennedy, who was also chairing the event, began by introducing the topic, the speakers and then proceeded to discuss the statistics and trends in Statutory Adjudication that have emerged over the last 10 years. This was accompanied by an extensive array of slides explaining each of the trends and survey results. Peter Kennedy concluded by advising that it was hoped that the next ARC report with all the statistics discussed would be published in the near future.
Given the volume of information provided by ARC, we have selected only a few of graphs in particular to comment on in this article. Previously, ARC had been predicting a 10% increasing in the numberof AdjudicationReferrals for the period up to the end of April 2007, based on the trends for the previous six months of that year. However when the actual figures were collated, the increase was only 5%, however this was still significant since the last increase in the number of Adjudication Referrals was recorded in the period of May 2001 to April 2002, at 1%.
The latest statistics, based on the returns from the Adjudicator Nominating Bodies (ANBs) indicate that the number of
Adjudication Referrals has dropped by 5% for the period of May 2007 to April 2008. It therefore appears that the upturn was short lived and it remains to be seen how far this will drop or whether it will level off or indeed increase given the changing commercial climate. We can only wait and see. Table 1 below depicts the rise and fall of Adjudication Referral over the past ten years.
A further development that Peter Kennedy noted is the change in the profession of Adjudicators over the past 10 years. Although as in previous years the top three remain;
1. Quantity Surveyors
2. Lawyers
3. Civil Engineers.
Since October 2006 the number Quantity Surveyors and Civil Engineers has fallen while the number of lawyers has increased
(as has the number of Architects, Table 2). The number of complaints being made against adjudicators remains extremely low, and indeed out of these complaints made in Year 10 none were upheld (see Table 3). This continues to send a strong message as to the trust and confi dence that is maintained in Adjudicators. This linked with the number CPD hours each Adjudicator needs to maintain should ensure that standards are kept high and thus confi dence continues to grow in the Adjudicators and the system.
Following Peter Kennedy’s review of the latest statistics, Janey Milligan and Lisa Cattanach of CDR spoke about their
practical experiences of Adjudication in general. Firstly Janey produced comments from Tony Bingham, Geoff Brewer and John
Riches as to each of their perception as to the success of Adjudication over the past 10 years. Janey then went on to discuss
some of her personal experiences of Adjudication over the years. Lisa Cattanach then spoke about some of the reasons behindthe evolving nature of the adjudication process, especially in the past ten years, with case law being
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YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5 YEAR 6 YEAR 7 YEAR 8 YEAR 9 YEAR 10
Table 1 -Growth Rate Adjudication Referrals in UK-
DISCIPLINE May 2002 Oct 2002 April 2003 Feb 2004 Oct 2004 Oct 2005 April 2006 Oct 2006 Oct 2007 April 2008
Quantity Surveyors 28.9% 39.1% 43.8% 41.6% 38.0% 38.8% 35.7% 35.1% 34.5% 31.4%
Lawyers 22.1% 21.9% 22.1% 21.6% 26.1% 26.3% 25.6% 26.6% 26.6% 28.4%
Civil engineers 14.6% 17.3% 13.2% 11.1% 11.6% 11.0% 15.8% 15.1% 15.0% 14.5%
Architects 7.8% 8.9% 10.2% 9.3% 9.6% 9.6% 9.0% 8.8% 8.7% 9.6%
CIOB/Builders 3.4% 3.4% 2.6% 5.2% 5.0% 4.9% 4.7% 5.3% 4.9% 7.5%
Building Surveyors 2.1% 1.7% 1.4% 1.0% 1.3% 1.4% 1.2% 1.2% 1.3% 2.5%
Construction Consultants 2.5% 0.3% 0.9% 4.1% 5.3% 4.7% 4.6% 4.8% 5.6% 1.9%
Structural Engineers 2.1% 3.4% 0.8% 2.2% 1.3% 1.3% 1.2% 0.9% 1.1% 1.3%
Complaints Against
Adjudicators Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10
Complaints Made 0.45% 1.97% 0.90% 1.07% 1.48% 1.46% 1.20% 1.19%
Complaints Upheld 0.05% 0.35% 0.00% 0.21% 0.00% 0.00% 0.07% 0.00%
Table2 -Primary Discipline of Adjudicators-
Table 3- Number of complaints against adjudicators
