The revised Construction (Design and Management) Regulations were laid before Parliament on 29 January and are due to come into force on 6 April 2015.
Only an early day motion would now prevent them becoming enacted. Early Day Motions (EDMs) are formal motions submitted for debate in the House of Commons. However, very few are actually debated. EDMs allow MPs to draw attention to an event or cause. MPs register their support by signing individual motions.
The client is considered to have the most influence on the health and safety of the construction project, having responsibility for setting budget, programme and engaging a capable project team. This is reflected in the new regulations, with all of their duties now being elevated to a ‘must do’.
What’s key for the client will be to ensure that all other duty-holders (principal designer and contractor) that they appoint have the relevant skills, knowledge and experience to fulfil these functions. In addition they must ensure that sufficient arrangements are prepared for managing projects so that it can be delivered without risk to health and safety.
These arrangements must then be maintained and reviewed throughout the project to ensure that they remain relevant.
A principal designer and a principal contractor will now be required to be appointed where more than one contractor is engaged on a project. The client will take on these functions by default until they have been made, in writing.
The relationship between the principal designer and contractor also extends beyond the design phase and must be maintained throughout the construction period and into project handover. A criticism of the (current) CDM coordinator role is that the CDM-C functions were primarily seen as a pre-construction role.
The Health and Safety Executive hopes that the new regulations will help reduce the number of accidents and ill-health cases associated with construction work with a particular emphasis on raising standards within smaller projects where there is greater cause for concern.
The CDM Regulations 2015 can be found here.
Your comment on your CDM 2015 approval page with reference to the appointment of principal contractor and principal designer where there is only one contractor is not correct. Should be ‘more than one contractor’
HI Jason – very eagle eyed – this was a typo which was corrected this morning. A critical difference !!! Heather