Delivery and Acceptance

This page is an extract from the full topic guidance on Delivery and Acceptance [75KB PDF]. It details any Constraints associated with Delivery and Acceptance, provides a summary of the Authoritative Guidance and lists any essential reading, further reading or associated documents.

If you have any queries on this topic, please contact the Sponsor by email: DGDC-CS-2B-1.

Constraints

None.

Authoritative Guidance Summary

Delivery may be defined as the handing over of goods or satisfactory performance of work in a contract for services.

The acceptance and delivery requirements should be those appropriate to the nature of the goods and services being procured and their interface with the payment arrangements should be clearly and unambiguously stated in the contract, taking account of the implications of the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.

DEFCON 507 (Delivery) [12KB PDF] sets out the principal contract conditions governing Delivery and states that every contract should include requirement specific delivery conditions detailing the dates of delivery and how it is to be effected. If no such provision is made the default conditions of DEFCON 507 will apply.

DEFCON 525 (Acceptance) [12KB PDF] sets out the principal contract conditions governing Acceptance and states that all contracts for goods should include a requirement specific acceptance process. If no such process is included the default conditions of DEFCON 525 will apply.

All contracts for services must include a requirement specific acceptance process since DEFCON 525 does not apply to services.

Legal title in goods passes from the contractor to MOD on delivery but DEFCON 507 (Delivery) provides that title will revert to the contractor if the acceptance process is not satisfactorily completed and the goods are rejected in accordance with DEFCON 524 (Rejection) [12KB PDF].

In the case of Self-to-Self delivery (e.g. delivery by the contractor to his stores, or to a subcontractor) a specific condition should be included in the contract to ensure legal title remains with the contractor while the goods remain in his possession.

Goods rejected in accordance with DEFCON 524 (Rejection) will be considered as not having been properly delivered under the contract. MOD’s remedies against contractors in respect of rejected goods are the same as those available when goods are delivered late or not at all.

DEFCON 113 (Diversion Orders) [28KB PDF] enables acquisition teams to ask the contractor to change the delivery point for goods.

The administrative requirements appertaining to delivery and verification for payment for traditional paper based contracts is effected through DEFCON 5 (MOD Form 640 - Advice and Inspection Note) and for electronic purchases using Purchase to Payment (P2P) through DEFFORM30 (Electronic Transactions Agreement), DEFCON 5J (Unique Identifiers) and DEFCON 129J (The Use Of Electronic Business Delivery Form).

Where MOD has an Urgent Operational Requirement during operational emergencies, a contractor may be willing and able to divert orders from another of his customers to meet the requirement. Terms suitable to the circumstances will require negotiation. Account should also be taken of the impact on the obligations of the parties such as contractor's delivery schedule or MOD's obligation to supply Government Furnished Assets (GFA).