Through the partnership, Consult Australia's members and their over 30,000 employees will have access to a library of contracts and training that help apply good project management principles and practices through the NEC Contract Suite.
NEC’s latest international partnership provides an opportunity to reposition contracts in the Australian market, shifting from the legal profession to a tool for consultants helping to drive better project outcomes. For national and international projects, this shift facilitates improvements across collaboration and cost savings as well as notably shorter procurement times.
Consult Australia and NEC have a strong history of collaboration, most notably during the drafting of the Y Clauses for Australia in 2021. Y clauses support the growth of NEC contracts around the world by enabling country-specific legislation to be easily integrated into the standard contracts. Since 2023 when the Centre for Contracting and Risk was developed, NEC has officially been recognised as a leading practice standard contract suitable for Consult Australia members and their clients, including Government bodies, and importantly, auditable for use in Australia.
Discussing the partnership, Global Head of NEC Contracts, Rekha Thawrani OBE said: “It is with great pleasure we announce our latest work with Consult Australia and can continue to further our already strong partnership. This international partnership is a significant milestone for us as we build on enthusiasm from the industry to move towards collaborative procurement and standardisation.
The NEC Contract suite was designed to empower collaboration and foster long lasting relationships, so seeing this sentiment being shared by entities like Consult Australia is a great step in the NEC journey. The upcoming tools for consultants and those looking to learn more about NEC represents our commitment to ensuring ongoing support and wider adoption of the contracts across the world.”
Speaking of building the market for NEC in Australia, Consult Australia’s CEO, Jonathan Cartledge, said: “Consult Australia and NEC share a commitment to delivering better outcomes for both industry and government from Australia’s infrastructure investment. This includes value for money from public expenditure and business certainty and success.
We know that procurement reform, better risk management and the delivery of standard contracting with collaboration at the core is long overdue. This partnership with NEC and Consult Australia reflects our longstanding goals to improve procurement and delivery, shift the culture of the industry, and drive better outcomes on projects.
As we look to opportunities to drive productivity, decarbonise through procurement and support innovation and digitalisation we need to learn from global best practice like NEC. This partnership provides the foundation for a new conversation across industry and with government about how we deliver these outcomes in Australia. We look forward to seeing it progress.”
Consult Australia members will also be able to access discounts for NEC products and training to help build knowledge and better support the broader adoption of NEC in the Australian market - cementing both entities' shared commitment to building and improving collaborative lifecycle contract standardisation in the Australian market.
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