The JCT master programme: what the contract asks for and what you have to prove
Updated: 4 hours ago
By Roman Bazelchuk | NEC Accredited Project Manager | APMG Project Planning and Control
Founder, NEC Planning Solutions Ltd
JCT asks the contractor for two copies of a master programme, a critical path only if the Contract Particulars demand one, and a revision only when an extension of time is granted. Design and Build asks for nothing. The standard a tribunal applies when the claim arrives is considerably higher.
Most of the writing about JCT and NEC runs one way, because most contractors are moving one way. This article runs the other. It is for the project director or planning manager on a JCT job who has no intention of moving to NEC. The contract asks almost nothing of the programme, and the disputes still turn on it.
The forms are compared directly in the guide to what actually changes when a contractor moves from JCT to NEC. The mechanisms behind entitlement are in Relevant Events and compensation events, and the deadlines in JCT vs NEC notices. What follows is narrower. What JCT actually requires of a programme, what a court has shown it expects when the claim is tested, and which parts of NEC discipline are worth importing into a contract that never asked for them.
The gap between those two things is the entire subject.
What JCT actually requires, which is very little
Under the Standard Building Contract, clause 2.9.1.2 requires the contractor to provide the architect with two copies of the master programme, free of charge. That is close to the whole of it. A critical path is required only where the Contract Particulars say so, along with whatever else the contract documents specify, such as logic links or resources. Where the Particulars are silent, a bar chart with no logic in it satisfies the clause.
The revision duty is narrower still. Under clause 2.9.2 the contractor revises the programme only when an extension of time has been given, or when a pre-agreed adjustment follows an accepted quotation. There is no obligation to revise it because the works have fallen behind through the contractor's own fault. That is logically defensible. Clause 2.28.6.1 already requires best endeavours to prevent delay, and a contractor recovering lost time is doing what the contract asks without needing to redraw anything.
Two further points are worth holding onto. The Standard Building Contract is the only one of the traditional JCT forms that refers to the contractor's programme at all. And on Design and Build there is no express requirement for a programme in the first place, which is the form a large share of UK work is now let under.
Read as a set, that looks like freedom. A contractor can hold as many detailed programmes as it likes without issuing any of them, can work to something other than the programme it issued, and can change its sequence without telling anyone. All of that is correct, and none of it is the point.
The tribunal's standard is not the contract's
The contract governs what the contractor must hand over during the works. It does not govern what a judge finds persuasive two years later. Walter Lilly and Company Ltd v Mackay is the clearest illustration on a JCT form, and it is worth reading for the programming rather than the celebrated bad temper.
The contract there was a JCT standard form with bespoke amendments, and the delay case was fought between two programming experts. The judge preferred the one who established critical delay conventionally, by reference to the logical sequences of events marking the longest path through the project. The other expert's approach was rejected, in part for a straightforward logical error about whether work finishing before practical completion could have delayed completion at all.
Note what that means for a contract whose Particulars never demanded a critical path. The claim was decided on longest-path logic regardless. A contractor arriving at that hearing with a bar chart, no logic links and no updates beyond those an extension of time forced is not in a weaker contractual position. It is in a weaker evidential one, and that is worse, because the contract cannot help it.
The same case is the leading authority on global claims, and the connection is direct. A global claim is what a contractor falls back on when the cost of individual events cannot practicably be disentangled. The usual reason they cannot be disentangled is that nobody kept the records at the time. Weak programme discipline does not merely make a claim harder to prove. It pushes the claim into its weakest available form.
The 2024 edition tightened the clock
Anyone treating the old position as settled should look at what Design and Build 2024 changed. The employer can now request further information reasonably necessary to reach a decision within fourteen days of the notice or the particulars, and must then give its decision within eight weeks, reduced from twelve.
Both changes cut the same way for a contractor without a live programme. A fourteen day request for particulars is answerable from records that already exist and unanswerable from records that have to be reconstructed. A shorter decision window gives less time for the employer to be persuaded by material assembled after the fact. The reform was presented as speeding up extension of time claims, and it does, in a direction that rewards whoever was already keeping the evidence.
The JCT master programme: three habits worth importing
None of what follows requires an NEC contract, a planning department or new software. All three are things NEC forces and JCT permits.
A baseline somebody can actually point at
Issue one programme, logic-linked, with a critical path, and treat it as fixed even though the contract does not. The value is not compliance. Every later argument needs a starting position that was issued, and not objected to, before anyone had a reason to argue. What that programme has to contain is set out in the guide to clause 31 programme acceptance, and while the acceptance regime is an NEC construct, the content standard is simply what a competent programme looks like.
An update cycle nobody is forcing you to run
Update monthly against the baseline, with actual start and finish dates and a remaining duration for everything in progress. The point is not the report. A contemporaneous sequence of updates shows what was known, and when, without anybody reconstructing it. A retrospective claim built from twelve monthly updates issued at the time is a different object from one built from the same twelve months of memory.
An as-built record captured as you go
Record what actually happened while it is still cheap to record. Progress, labour, instructions received, information awaited, and the date each first affected the work. This is the habit that separates a claim that can be disentangled from one that cannot, and it is the difference between an itemised case and a global one.
The two positions are easier to see side by side.
One NEC instinct that does not transfer
Importing discipline is worth doing. Importing NEC's assumptions about what a programme entitles you to is not.
In Glenlion Construction Ltd v The Guinness Trust the contractor's approved programme showed completion around thirteen weeks before the contractual date for completion. It was held that the contractor was entitled to finish early. But the employer was under no duty to co-operate actively in achieving the earlier date, only a duty not to hinder. The qualification matters. The position differs where the programme is incorporated as a contract document, or where entitlement is bound up with it.
That is precisely the difference between the two forms. Under NEC, entitlement is bound up with the programme. That is why the float between planned Completion and the Completion Date belongs to the contractor and survives an assessment, as set out in time risk allowance and terminal float. Under JCT it is not. A JCT contractor that programmes to finish early has bought a management target and no contractual protection. It cannot claim for being prevented from reaching a date the employer was never obliged to help it reach. The same programme is wired into the money under NEC, which the JCT payment cycle against NEC assessment dates explains.
Summary
JCT asks for a master programme and very little else, and Design and Build asks for nothing. That is a statement about administration, not about evidence. When the claim is tested, it is tested against longest-path logic and contemporaneous records, whether or not the contract ever required either.
The practical conclusion is unglamorous. Run the programme as though the contract demanded what NEC demands, keep the updates nobody is asking for, and record the as-built while it is still free. What that looks like across a full delivery is set out in the NEC3 gas infrastructure case study. The contract sets the minimum. The tribunal sets the standard, and only one of them is going to be reading your programme.
Frequently asked questions
Does JCT require a programme?
The Standard Building Contract requires the contractor to give the architect two copies of a master programme under clause 2.9.1.2, and it is the only traditional JCT form that mentions the programme at all. A critical path is required only where the Contract Particulars say so. Design and Build contains no express programme requirement.
Is the JCT master programme a contract document?
No, and the architect's receipt of it has no particular effect on the contract or on the contractor's responsibilities. That cuts both ways: the contractor is not bound to work to it, and it proves nothing on its own. Its value is evidential, and only if it was issued and updated contemporaneously.
When must a JCT contractor revise the programme?
Under clause 2.9.2, only when an extension of time has been given or a pre-agreed adjustment follows an accepted quotation. There is no duty to revise the programme where the works have slipped through the contractor's own fault, because clause 2.28.6.1 already requires best endeavours to prevent delay.
Can a JCT contractor claim for being prevented from finishing early?
Generally not. In Glenlion Construction Ltd v The Guinness Trust the contractor could finish early, but the employer had no duty to co-operate in achieving the earlier date, only a duty not to hinder. The position differs where the programme is a contract document or entitlement is bound up with it, which is the NEC arrangement rather than the JCT one.
What programme records matter most on a JCT claim?
A logic-linked baseline issued before the dispute, monthly updates carrying actual dates and remaining durations, and an as-built record captured as the work happened. Walter Lilly v Mackay shows delay decided on longest-path logic, and global claims arising where individual events cannot be disentangled because the records were never kept.
About the author
Roman Bazelchuk is the Founder of NEC Planning Solutions Ltd, a UK project planning and controls consultancy supporting contractors with NEC programme compliance, compensation event assessments and live project controls. He is an NEC Accredited Project Manager and holds the APMG Project Planning and Control qualification, with a BEng in Mechanical Engineering and postgraduate training in Planning and Control.
NEC Planning Solutions provides contract-aware planning support through a QA-governed delivery model, helping project teams keep programmes accepted, current and commercially useful from tender through to live delivery.
Running a JCT job without a planning function?
The discipline this article describes is a few days a month, not a permanent hire. Specialist contractor planning support builds the baseline, runs the monthly update cycle and keeps the as-built record, so that the evidence exists before anyone needs it rather than after.
