Hello folks 👋
This week we are covering Level 3 of the Project Financial Controls and Cost Reporting competency.
I would highly advise you to go through the candidate guide and the QS pathway guide to understand the basic requirements.
DISCLAIMER: The following is not an exhaustive set of notes, but it's an attempt to help those who, like me at the beginning, did not know where to start! Please feel free to let me know if I have said anything incorrect or out of date!
So what is Level 3 Project Finance all about?
The RICS note that to demonstrate competence at Level 3, you need demonstrate your ability to:
Advise on strategies and procedures to control predicted expenditure in line with a budget.
Implementing change control procedures within the contract
This bullet point requires you to understand how your specific contract manages changes. You should know these clauses like the back of your hand, not only this you should understand the process. It’s slightly easier in JCT than NEC as the latter has a series of steps which are required to implement change. For both contracts though there are flowcharts available which help break this down!
Establishing reporting regimes/protocols
Some clients who are ‘construction informed’ may have established regimes and protocols. As a consultant for these clients your job will be to exercise these protocols, and you may, with experience be asked to make alterations based on your experience working with these rules and regulations
By reporting regimes we are talking about cost reporting. When you undertake cost reports for your client, are you using a client format or is it a format you and your organisation have introduced to the client. The latter is an example you can use for this bullet point.
Using risk management and analysis techniques
Do you understand the principles of risk management and the steps that you as a QS will be involved in?
I would highly suggest reading the RICS Risk Management guide to get a brief breakdown of the key strategies.
This bullet point is difficult to write about because my experience will be different to yours! You may have experiences that I do not have which work more in your favour. A lot of my risk management and analysis experience has emerged from attending risk workshops pre contract and then attending the site meetings during the construction period. The bulk of the risks emerge during the construction period where we have to react to certain situations due to the live environment we are in.
I want to do a more detailed post in the future about the use P50, P80 risk profiling but i will need to do more research prior to this!
That’s it for this post folks, as always if you have a comment or query please get in touch!