If you own a building, manage a block or are planning a refurbishment, the rules on health and safety in construction changed on 6 April 2015. The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 replaced the 2007 version, and the client now sits firmly at the centre of the system. Many owners and managing agents assumed CDM was a matter for builders. That was never quite true, and it is even less true now.
What changed
- The CDM coordinator has gone. Where a project has more than one contractor, the client must appoint a principal designer to plan, manage and coordinate health and safety during the design stage, alongside a principal contractor for the work on site.
- Every project needs a construction phase plan, however small, before work starts.
- Notification has a new trigger. A project must be notified to the Health and Safety Executive if it will last more than 30 working days with more than 20 workers on site at the same time, or if it will exceed 500 person days.
- Domestic clients are now covered, although their duties normally pass to the contractor or designer.
- Projects already running on 6 April 2015 that had a CDM coordinator had until 6 October 2015 to appoint a principal designer.
What a client must actually do
The client duties are practical rather than technical. You must make suitable arrangements for managing the project, allow enough time and resources, and give the design team and contractor the information you hold about the building. That pre construction information matters: an asbestos register, drawings, previous surveys, details of services and anything known about structural alterations. Missing information is one of the most common reasons for delay and extra cost once a contractor is on site.
You must also make sure the appointed duty holders are competent and are doing their jobs, and, where the project has more than one contractor, that a health and safety file is prepared and handed over at the end. For a block of flats, that file belongs with the building and should be kept safe for the next programme of works.
How to make it work for you
- Decide early who will act as principal designer, and appoint them at the start of design, not at tender.
- Gather your existing information before the design is drawn up.
- Build realistic time for planning into the programme.
- Keep the health and safety file with the building records.
Our Contract Administration and Major Works services cover these duties from feasibility to handover. See how a refurbishment of 26 apartments ran from tender to final account.