Chapter 03
Subcontractor disputes: scope, attendance, quality
How to use the captured base to substantiate the three most common subcontractor disputes — scope of works, attendance, and quality of installation — and to keep the back-to-back position intact when the dispute moves upstream.
01
Scope disputes
Scope disputes argue about what was included in the package. They surface most often at the boundary between trades — the point where mechanical handed off to electrical, or where structure handed off to fit-out — because that is where the bills of quantities and the specification are most likely to overlap or leave a gap. The captured base helps when scope is referenced to physical works in defined areas. A 360 walk taken at the start of the package, with the package boundary clear and the surrounding works visible, sits alongside the contract documents as a baseline. When the subcontractor argues that an item was outside scope, the walk and the documents together show what the area looked like at the start and what the agreed boundary was. The dispute resolves with reference to the record, not to memory or to a re-reading of the specification. The discipline that supports this is to capture the package boundary at the start of every package, and to include a screenshot or print of the relevant area in the package start meeting minutes. Five minutes of curation at start saves a fortnight of correspondence at the moment of dispute. The subcontractor who knows the package was captured at start tends to be more careful about scope arguments at the end.
02
Attendance disputes
Attendance disputes argue about who was on site, when, and for how long. They are the most common form of subcontractor dispute on labour-only or labour-and-plant packages, and they are the easiest to settle when the records exist. Gate records and personnel scans, tied to subcontractor and package, settle most of these in minutes. The discipline is to align attendance to the package programme: the certifier expects to see attendance during the period certified for, not just any attendance. A subcontractor who claims labour for a week in which the gate records show three days of presence is not arguing about attendance; they are arguing about the gate record. Cross-checks with site capture at the work front close the gap further. A fixed-camera view of the relevant area, sampled at intervals during the disputed period, shows whether the labour was present and active. Where the package is paid on a measured basis, the cross-check is between attendance, site capture, and the measured quantity. A subcontractor whose attendance does not match the certification request tends to withdraw the dispute when the records arrive. The records have to exist before they can be produced; the workflow that captures them is the workflow that resolves the dispute.
03
Quality disputes
Quality disputes argue about how the work was installed, and they tend to surface late in the contract when remedial cost is highest. The captured base supports these when 360 walks ran through the package at the right intervals. A walk before close-out, a walk during installation, and a walk at handover give the project a defensible visual record at three points in time. The walks do not replace the inspection regime or the quality assurance documentation; they sit alongside them and provide the visual reference that the documentation lacks. When a quality issue surfaces later, the question is no longer what the work looked like; it is what the disposition was. That is a much shorter conversation, and it tends to resolve in the project office rather than in expert reports. The discipline that supports this is to schedule the three walks into the package programme so they happen by default rather than by exception. The walks are short and inexpensive. The question of whether they were done is settled by the existence of the file, not by a search through someone´s photo roll. On packages where workmanship is a known risk — wet trades, secondary steelwork, fit-out finishes — the walk discipline is the difference between a defensible record and a forensic exercise.
04
Holding the back-to-back position
A subcontractor dispute that resolves at the project tier is the cheap version. The expensive version is the dispute that survives the upstream certification and arrives at the main contract as a knock-on claim against the owner. Holding the back-to-back position requires that the evidence used downstream is the same evidence that would be used upstream. A scope argument that is settled with the subcontractor on the basis of a 360 walk and a contract extract should be documented in a form that can move upstream if the scope question turns out to belong to the owner rather than the subcontractor. An attendance dispute that uses gate records on the subcontract side should use the same gate records on the main contract side. The discipline is to write the resolution in the form a future reviewer can use, even when the immediate audience is internal. Practitioners who have lost back-to-back position usually report that the loss happened in the form of the resolution rather than in the substance. A note in the cost report that says the dispute was settled is not the same as a file that records what the evidence was, who agreed it, and on what terms. The latter survives the audit; the former does not.
Practice
01. Walk one current package and identify whether the package boundary was captured at start. If not, capture it now and file the result.
Look for: A strong response describes the captured boundary, names where the file is stored, and identifies any package where the start-of-package capture is now missing and cannot be retrofitted.
02. Open the most recent attendance dispute on your project. Identify whether the gate record and the site capture would have settled it and how long that would have taken.
Look for: A strong response cites the records that existed, names the gap if any, and estimates the time saved against the time the dispute actually took.
Checkpoint
For a current package, name one dispute that could plausibly arise, the three captured artefacts you would assemble to settle it, and how you would frame the resolution to preserve the back-to-back position.
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