Programme float is the buffer built into a construction schedule to accommodate the small variances that inevitably occur across a live site. A trade that takes a few days longer than planned. A material delivery that arrives late. A weather event that costs a week. Each is normal. Float is what prevents each small variance from cascading into overall programme slippage.
Why float sits with the developer under separate procurement
Where each package on a scheme is procured separately, the developer’s programme has to hold the total float across all packages. Each contractor manages their own float, but the aggregate float exposure at scheme level sits with the developer or their principal contractor. This creates a specific commercial problem: the developer is essentially insuring themselves against the cumulative variance of every contractor on the site.
Where multiple packages are delivered by a single specialist group, the group carries the float management responsibility internally across their delivered packages. A slight delay in the group’s scaffold work can be absorbed by tightening the group’s roofing work that follows, without the developer ever seeing the delay. The programme date the developer sees is the programme date the group commits to across the packages they deliver.
This absorption of float risk is one of the underspecified but real commercial benefits of group procurement. The developer buys a programme outcome rather than a set of individual package promises that they then have to synthesise into an overall programme.
How the Globe Group absorbs float internally
The Globe Group’s programme commitments to developer clients on multi-package schemes are structured this way. The commitment is to the overall scheme programme date, not to individual package dates that then have to be aggregated. Where a delay occurs in one of the group’s packages, the group’s programme team assesses the impact across subsequent packages and decides whether internal absorption is possible or whether the developer needs to be notified of a programme risk.
In practice, most package-level delays can be absorbed internally without notification because the group’s overall programme buffer is larger than any individual package’s variance. The developer sees a scheme that runs to programme without being aware of the small internal adjustments the group’s team is making week to week.
There is a specific commercial arrangement around programme guarantees worth mentioning. Some framework developers negotiate liquidated damages for programme slippage against the group’s package delivery. Under separate procurement, liquidated damages against individual contractors are of limited practical value because the interface risks are outside any single contractor’s control. Under group procurement, liquidated damages against the group’s overall programme delivery are more meaningful because the group has genuine control over the internal coordination that produces the outcome.
What this means commercially for developers
For developers, the practical implication is that the programme date offered by a group is a different commercial commitment to the programme dates offered by individual contractors. The group is taking on more risk. The developer is transferring more risk. The premium the group charges for that risk transfer is typically less than the value of the transfer to the developer.
For QSs evaluating procurement options at scheme initiation, the programme risk allocation should be part of the analysis alongside the unit rate comparison. A cheaper procurement route that leaves more programme risk with the developer may be a worse outcome than a slightly more expensive route that transfers the risk to a party better able to manage it.
The float absorption argument is one of the operational reasons portfolio developers with experience of both approaches tend to consolidate procurement around specialist groups over time. The commercial simplification and the risk transfer both work in the developer’s favour once the arrangement is bedded in.
Talk to the Globe Group
To discuss programme float management across packages on your scheme on your scheme, contact the Globe Group on 01223 890727 or email enquiries@theglobegroup.co.uk.
