Scope of works template for a residential development

A scope of works template has one column that most versions of it skip, and it is the one that ends the most arguments: exclusions. What is included in a trade’s price gets written down as a matter of course. What is deliberately left out — the rock below a stated level, the item another section supplies, the condition a section has to be handed over in — is the boundary a scope actually needs to draw, and it is the field a scope with no exclusions is silently missing. This page is not a document to sign. It is a structure: one row per section of the works, one trade or work package at a time, repeated until the contract is fully described.

It is written for whoever has to draft or assess the document that turns a design into a priced scope: a client-side project manager assembling a head contract package, a head contractor writing scope for its own subcontract packages, or a superintendent checking that what was tendered is what gets built. A drawing set and a specification show a tenderer what the finished work looks like. The scope of works states what they are actually pricing — what is included, what is excluded, what is carried as an allowance because it can’t yet be priced, and where their section hands over to the next. Background on what the document itself has to do is in scope of works.

Every section is numbered, and the numbering has to stay stable, because the tender, the schedule of rates, every progress claim and the final account all point back to it. That is also why this is the document a tender is actually priced against: how it sits alongside the drawings and the specification at that stage is covered in the tender process.

The section header — project, section number, section name — is what everything else in the row hangs off. Keep the numbering stable once the tender goes out; a schedule of rates, a progress claim and a variation register all refer back to a section number, and a section renumbered between tender and contract is a section nobody’s paperwork agrees on any more.

Inclusions and exclusions are the pair that decides the boundary. Write inclusions as work to be performed rather than an object supplied, so the labour to install it can’t later be argued as extra. Then write the exclusion for anything a reasonable tenderer might assume is included but isn’t — the demonstration row excludes rock excavation below RL 11.8, because without that line a tenderer could reasonably assume all excavation, at any depth, sits inside the bulk earthworks price.

Provisional sums and prime cost items are answered by different questions, so keep them in separate fields. A provisional sum is work already in the scope that can’t yet be priced — the demonstration row (section 3.2) carries a $40,000.00 allowance for rock excavation below RL 11.8, adjusted on the measured quantity if it is actually encountered. A prime cost item is work in scope where the item itself hasn’t been selected yet, carried at a supply allowance with the installation already priced. Neither is a way of avoiding a decision; both are a way of pricing scope before the decision is made.

Interfaces, standards, deliverables and responsible party close the section out. Interfaces are where most defects arguments start, so state the condition the work has to be in at handover, in both directions, and who inspects it. Standards should be referenced — the National Construction Code and whatever Australian Standards the specification calls up — never restated, because the specification’s own wording is what actually applies. Deliverables are the documents a section isn’t complete without: certificates, test results, warranties, as-built drawings. Responsible party is who performs the work and who supplies anything the performer doesn’t, and it belongs in the scope rather than in a meeting after the fact.

Inclusions with no exclusions beside them. A scope that lists only what is included leaves every boundary to be argued at the first claim. Write the exclusion next to the inclusion it borders, not on a separate page nobody reads at tender.

A provisional sum with no trigger stated. An allowance sitting in a scope with no stated trigger for when it applies is an allowance nobody can adjust with a straight face at claim time. State what has to happen — a level, a measured quantity, a defined event — before the sum moves.

An interface with a handover but no inspection. Say who inspects the work at the boundary and what condition it has to be in. A handover with no inspection named is where a defect quietly becomes the next trade’s problem instead of the last one’s.

Expecting to edit the scope inside the template. The download is a structure to write a scope against, not the scope itself. The prose that actually describes the work — the wording a tenderer prices — still gets written in your own document; this template is the list of fields that document has to answer, not a replacement for writing it.