The Society of Construction Law (SCL) Delay and Disruption Protocol places programme and records at the very top of its 22 Core Principles for a reason. In the experience of every construction delay expert witness operating in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East, the strength or weakness of a delay claim is determined long before the dispute crystallises — it is determined by the quality of the contractor's planning and record-keeping during the works.
The SCL Protocol recommends that the parties prepare and accept a properly resourced and logic-linked baseline programme at the outset of the project. This programme should reflect the contractor's intended method and sequence of working, identify the critical path, and contain sufficient detail to permit meaningful progress monitoring. Without an accepted baseline, any later attempt to demonstrate the impact of an employer-risk event on the completion date becomes substantially more difficult and substantially more expensive.
Equally important is the regular update of the programme during the works. The Protocol recommends monthly updates as a minimum, capturing actual progress, logic changes and the impact of any delay events. These contemporaneous updates form the evidential backbone of any future extension of time application and are routinely requested by tribunals and delay expert witnesses appointed in FIDIC-based arbitrations across the GCC.
Records sit alongside the programme as the second pillar. The Protocol's Appendix B sets out detailed categories of records that should be maintained, including site diaries, daily labour and plant returns, progress photographs, correspondence, instructions, request for information (RFI) registers, inspection reports, weather records and minutes of meetings. In disruption claims in particular, the absence of granular productivity records is frequently fatal.
In the Middle East, where projects often involve multiple nationalities, sub-contracted packages and bespoke amendments to FIDIC, the discipline of record-keeping is often the first casualty of programme pressure. As a delay and disruption expert witness, the most common reason for a meritorious claim being rejected by a tribunal is not a deficiency in the legal entitlement but a deficiency in the contemporaneous evidence supporting it.
The practical takeaway is simple: invest in planning resources at the front end of the project, agree the baseline programme formally, update it monthly, and capture records in a structured and retrievable format. Doing so transforms a contractor's negotiating position when delay events occur, and gives the appointed expert witness the raw material needed to produce a robust and defensible delay analysis.