The industry's view of stage payments and the Latham recommendations

Latham suggested that it would be a more favourable system of payment and valuation if payments were based upon stages / milestones. A questionnaire survey was constructed and sent to 180 companies including; clients, contractors, consultants and quantity surveyors. The purpose of the questionnaire was; a) To learn more about stage payments and whether they are becoming more frequently used, b) To see if the industry agrees with the advantages of stage payments as proposed by Latham, and c) To see what the industry thinks about the rest of the relevant Latham proposals. It was found that out of the nine proposed advantages, the industry as a whole, only agreed with three of them. With regard to the other Latham proposals the industry disagreed strongly with four out of the seven proposals.