Some extra work ordered may be paid for at dayworks rates. This is adopted when no unit rates seem applicable, or when the amount of work required is indeterminate. Atypical application of dayworks rates would be for offloading and stacking pipes delivered by the employer for use on the job if no bill item for this has been allowed. In the UK the Schedules of Dayworks Carried out Incidental to Contract Work issued by the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) is widely used as a basis for charging dayworks. The most recent Schedule (issued in November 2002) provides for payment as follows:
The cost of labour per hour is to be taken as the wages paid to a worker
(inclusive of overtime, bonus, travelling time and lost time due to weather)
plus 148 per cent; plus subsistence or lodging allowance and travelling allowances plus 12.5 per cent.
The cost of labour sub-contractors and hired drivers is at invoiced costs plus 88 per cent.
The cost of materials is the invoiced cost to the contractor of those materials plus 12.5 per cent.
The cost of plant used is to be taken at the rates listed in the Schedule, and hired plant at invoiced cost (excluding driver) plus 12.5 per cent.
Cash discounts up to 2.5 per cent are not deducted.
The percentage additions may vary from time to time as new editions of the Schedule are published following agreement reached in the industry. The plant rates in the Schedule are also reviewed regularly and cover most types of plant inclusive of fuel but exclusive of driver. For most items hourly rates are quoted, for others daily or weekly rates.
As an alternative to the CECA dayworks rates, tenderers may be required to quote at the time of tendering their rates against a list of labour categories put in a schedule attached to the bill of quantities. This is necessary for work done outside UK where no locally recognized schedule of dayworks rates may apply. The method is also useful for construction contracts in UK since the labour categories listed can be grouped into four or five classes according to skill or range of pay, and prices entered may be specified as inclusive of all oncosts and overheads. This simplifies the work of costing daywork sheets.
Dayworks rates for plant may also be inserted by the contractor.
As soon as any dayworks has been authorized, the RE must inform the inspector or section engineer concerned, so that they can note the labour, materials and plant used on the operation. The contractors foreman in charge of such dayworks will normally submit daily time and materials sheets to the inspector, for him to check and sign that they are correct. From these sheets the contractor makes up the dayworks account typically as Fig. 13.6 in duplicate and submits invoices to support the prices for materials. After checking and signing by the RE, one copy of the account is returned to the contractor for inclusion in the next monthly application.