Partnering and Alliancing in Construction Projects. By Sally Roe and Jane Jenkins. London: Sweet & Maxwell. 2003. 210pp. + Appendices, Index and Tables. ISBN 0–421–74040–X. Hardback. Price £125.

Partnering has a long history although it was never recognised as such. Organisations and companies have always preferred contractors whom they could trust and vice versa . The essential elements of partnering have been present whenever those responsible for a project work together as a team. Cost control was not normally top priority. The advent of competitive tendering and its equation with value for money precludes such elements. But even in the public sector collaboration continued where necessity dictated, such as work in wartime, or defence or other work of national importance. Partnering was present before any contract was negotiated— indeed there might never be a contract. The authors refer early on to Baird Textile Holdings Ltd v. Marks & Spencer plc [2001] EWCA Civ 274 which concerned the sad consequences to the claimant of trusting the latter and not having a contract. It is salutary to recall that with great success Marks & Spencer pioneered with Bovis Ltd the fixed fee form of contracting in which the contract documents were at times nominal. In an instructive and valuable Foreword Mr Bob Scott recalls the advantages to BP and the contractors involved of an alliance developed in the 1990s for a North Sea project. This was a natural development of trends in the oil industry which has rarely forgotten that pre-planning and co-operation pay dividends and that it does not usually pay to fall out with someone (and certainly not irretrievably as one never knows when they might be needed again).