Mr. John G. Murphy:

It is very difficult to talk about a project that none of us here was involved in. I can give an example of a project we tendered this morning for a UK water company. I was not that close to it. As a director, I came in to sit on an adjudication panel for it before we submitted the tender. What surprised me was that we had already constructed about 25% of it. The contractor, trying to get the project up and going, started the project on an early contractor involvement, ECI, model. While we were building it, we were developing the design and pricing it. We are 25% of the way through the project before we have actually agreed the price.

That is not a sort of "whatever you want". It is scrutinised. It is open book and they can examine every cost we have in there. You end up with a target cost. You get to share if you can come under that and you get punished if you go above it. It still has a cap and a collar. You still end up making a margin, no matter what happens. They are lowish risk but the project proceeds. Most of the projects we do would be on that ECI basis. This one is a little unusual in that we are actually 25% of the way through the project before we have even agreed the price. It is a very successful model. It means we are working the day we are awarded the project as opposed to sitting around-----