Kāinga Ora Professional Services Agreement
In November this year, we advised members of the significant concerns we had with an updated version of the Conditions of Contract for Consultancy Services (CCCS) proposed by Kāinga Ora.
ACE New Zealand, Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects, and New Zealand Institute of Quantity Surveyors have been working collaboratively to provide feedback to Kāinga Ora to ensure that our members are offered fair, reasonable and insurable terms of engagement.
As previously mentioned, these discussions on our member's behalf have been lengthy, dating back to May 2020. We've worked quickly to review Kāinga Ora documents and identify the key issues and risks. We've also provided suggested clause changes to improve the outcomes for both professional services providers and the client.
Engagement with Kāinga Ora
Since our last update, we've had several meetings and ongoing dialogue with the team from Kāinga Ora. While we are yet to conclude, this has been a positive process, the discussions are going well, and all parties are confident that we can agree on outcomes which work well both for you as a service provider and Kāinga Ora as the client.
Looking ahead & next steps
While we're continuing to work through the form of agreement with Kāinga Ora, we remain firm in our view that until we have mutually agreed on a position, members should not sign up to the updated Kāinga Ora agreement under the current terms.
However, we recognise that these essential projects must continue being tendered and contracted in the meantime. So we've agreed with Kāinga Ora that:
- For each RFP you receive, it will include the proposed form of agreement (November 2020) that is subject to our ongoing discussions. Kāinga Ora are keen for your feedback on this version, to help shape amendments
- At your request, Kāinga Ora will contract on its previous version of CCCS (October 2019) which many of you are familiar with, and have already been working under. We do consider this to be an interim arrangement given the positive discussions we’ve had with Kāinga Ora on changes
- However, as with any contractual process, we encourage you to undertake an appropriate risk, legal and insurance review before signing
We'll keep you updated
We will resume discussions with Kāinga Ora in mid-January following the holiday break and are hopeful of bringing this to a resolution within a matter of weeks. We'll provide further updates to members as necessary and invite any members who have specific issues to get in touch directly.
Ngā mihi,
Teena Hale Pennington - Chief Executive, Te Kāhui Whaihanga
Paul Evans - Chief Executive - ACE New Zealand