ABSTRACT
The UK is fortunate to have the benefit of a wide variety of published institutional standard forms of contract available for use in the building and civil engineering industries. However, a number of government-sponsored reports have also highlighted that this has major disadvantages, identifying duplication of effort and a wasteful use of resources at almost every level of activity. It has been suggested that many of these forms also probably help to fuel the adversarial nature of the construction industry in which they are applied. It can also be argued that to write and interpret the clauses of the various forms alone represents an industry in itself.
