// Regulated by RICS // NEC4 Option C and Option E // AMP8 // UK-wide //
Commercial support for water frameworks under AMP8
Chartered quantity surveying and NEC4 contract administration for main contractors, alliance partners and water companies delivering the 2025 to 2030 investment programme.
One of six sectors. Where the directors' delivery record sits.
What Peak Commercial does on AMP8 water frameworks
Peak Commercial provides commercial and quantity surveying support on water frameworks under AMP8, the eighth asset management period, which runs from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2030. Its commercial team on one major AMP8 framework is building past fifteen people. Chris Turner, Director, has seventeen years in commercial management, including NEC target cost frameworks in water and highways, and specialises in target cost arrangements, cost management and programme delivery.
Water is a regulated sector, and the regulation reaches the contractor's ledger. Ofwat's PR24 final determinations, published in December 2024, set the price control for AMP8 and the £104 billion of expenditure the sector planned to deliver over the five years. Five companies referred their determinations to the Competition and Markets Authority; its redetermination of 26 March 2026 adjusted the numbers at the margin and left the shape of the programme intact. Every pound of that spend is scrutinised, first by the water company's commercial assurance team and then by the regulator's efficiency tests. A target cost framework passes that scrutiny only when Defined Cost is provable, Disallowed Cost is understood before it is incurred, and compensation events are assessed on evidence.
That is the work. All of it. We provide NEC4 contract administration on Option C and Option E contracts for main contractors and their supply chains, build the cost baseline and run the forecast, value change as it happens through the compensation event process, and keep records that an assurance review can follow without our help. Where a framework is already under way and the position has drifted, we take over the legacy account and rebuild it.
What this includes
NEC4 Option C target cost and Option E cost reimbursable administration
Defined Cost and Schedule of Cost Components application, including Disallowed Cost control
Compensation event notification, quotation and assessment to survive assurance review
Target cost build-up, forecasting and Contractor's share modelling
Commercial assurance preparation and response for framework audits
Subcontract package procurement and back-to-back NEC4 subcontract administration
Interim application preparation, assessment and payment notice management
Final account preparation and settlement at framework and project level
01
Water
AMP8 frameworks under NEC4 Option C and Option E, administered to survive the water company's commercial assurance and the regulator behind it. The firm is building a commercial team of more than fifteen on one major AMP8 framework.
04
Highways
Strategic road network and local authority programmes under NEC4 target cost, through the RIS3 road period that began in April 2026. Where the directors learned the trade.
05
Nuclear
Civils, enabling and infrastructure packages on the nuclear estate, with Defined Cost records built to audit grade from mobilisation. Capability tier; the disciplines transfer.
// Regulated by RICS // NEC4 Option C and Option E // AMP8 // UK-wide //
What AMP8 asks of a commercial team
An AMP8 framework is administered nothing like a single project. Work arrives as batches of schemes under one contract, each with its own target, programme and completion date, and the commercial team has to hold every one of them to the same record standard. Totex regulation means capital and operational expenditure are assessed together, so the split of cost between them, and the evidence for it, matters to the water company in a way it does not on a highways scheme.
Three disciplines decide whether a contractor recovers what it is owed. First, the Early Warning Register; on a target cost contract, an unnotified risk is a cost the contractor carries alone. Second, the compensation event record, notified in time, quoted on a forecast of Defined Cost and closed while the facts are fresh. Third, the audit trail behind Defined Cost itself: timesheets, plant records, subcontract accounts and the allocation rules that connect them to the schemes they belong to. We set those disciplines up at mobilisation and hold them for the life of the framework. Which NEC4 main option a framework runs on decides how much of that weight the contractor carries, and we have set that out in full in our guide to the NEC4 ECC main options.
Who we act for
Main contractors and alliance partners delivering AMP8 frameworks. Specialist subcontractors and suppliers working under NEC4 subcontracts on those frameworks. Water and wastewater companies that need an independent commercial view of a framework, a scheme or a disputed account, where we act as party representative. We have sat on the contractor's side of the table and understand where the water company's assurance team will look.
Talk to a quantity surveyor
Talk to a chartered specialist about your AMP8 programme. Send us the contract, the target and the key correspondence. We will tell you where you stand, what it is worth pursuing, and what it is not.
Frequently Asked Questions