Minor Works: a different contract, not a shrunken one

JCT Minor Works is the shorter form for simpler, smaller works. It exists because not every job needs the full apparatus of the Standard Building Contract, and dressing a modest project in the SBC creates cost and formality for no return.

The trouble starts when a surveyor moves from the SBC to Minor Works and carries the SBC's assumptions across intact. The form is shorter, so the instinct is that it is the same contract with less writing. It is a different contract, and the differences are where the money sits.

Retention exists here. Set it.

The most common Minor Works error is to assume there is no retention. There is. The percentage is stated in the contract particulars, and it is frequently 5 per cent, though the figure is whatever the parties have entered.

So the mistake is not to ignore a retention that does not exist. The mistake is to forget to set the rate at all, or to import a rate or a mechanism from the SBC without checking the particulars in front of you.

Because the amount held is real and cumulative, the same discipline that applies under the SBC applies here. Calculate it on the gross valuation to date, release it on the terms the contract states, and reconcile the balance held on every certificate.

There is no loss and expense clause

This is the difference that matters most, and it is the one most likely to be missed.

Minor Works has no distinct loss and expense clause. There is no contractual mechanism for ascertaining loss and expense in the way the SBC provides one. That absence changes where the contractor's remedy for delay or disruption caused by the employer actually lives.

Under the SBC, a contractor delayed or disrupted by a matter for which the employer is responsible pursues a contractual claim, ascertained through the machinery the contract sets out. Under Minor Works, that machinery is not there. The remedy for delay or disruption on the employer's side lies in damages for breach at common law, not in a contractual claim.

The practical consequence for the surveyor is record keeping. A contractual ascertainment is built from the contract's own process. A common law damages claim is built from evidence of loss actually suffered as a result of the breach. If the cost of delay is not being captured contemporaneously, the claim later is weaker than it needed to be.

Variations are valued more simply

Minor Works values variations without the elaborate hierarchy of valuation rules that the SBC sets out. The SBC gives a structured order for pricing varied work, using contract rates, then rates of analogous character, then fair rates, and so on. Minor Works does not carry that detailed hierarchy.

The valuation is therefore simpler, and it relies more on reasonableness and on agreement between the parties than on a prescribed sequence. That is appropriate for the scale of job the form is written for, but it means the surveyor cannot reach for the SBC's rules of valuation and apply them clause by clause, because those clauses are not in the contract.

Extension of time is simpler too

Minor Works handles time more simply than the SBC. It provides for a reasonable extension of the completion date where the delay is caused by matters beyond the contractor's control, rather than working through a detailed list of Relevant Events.

So the assessment is one of reasonableness against a broad test, not a matching exercise against an enumerated list. The surveyor assessing an extension under Minor Works is applying judgement to whether the cause sits beyond the contractor's control, not ticking a defined event.

What to carry across, and what not to

• Carry across the discipline on retention: set the rate from the particulars, calculate on the gross figure, reconcile every period.
• Do not carry across the loss and expense machinery, because it is not there. Record delay cost separately as the foundation for a damages claim.
• Do not carry across the SBC's valuation hierarchy. Value variations simply and by agreement.
• Do not carry across the Relevant Events list. Assess time as a reasonable extension for causes beyond the contractor's control.

The unifying point is that Minor Works is written for a different kind of job, and its economy is deliberate. Treating the gaps as omissions to be filled with SBC thinking produces certificates and assessments that rest on clauses the parties never agreed to.

The check before you certify

• Have you read the retention percentage in the particulars and set that exact rate?
• Are you recording any employer-caused delay cost contemporaneously, knowing there is no contractual loss and expense route?
• Are you valuing variations by the form's simpler approach rather than an SBC hierarchy that is not present?
• Are you assessing time by reasonableness rather than against a Relevant Events list?

Minor Works rewards a surveyor who reads it as itself. It punishes one who reads it as the SBC with the difficult parts removed.