Subject to Parliamentary approval, new Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) will come into force on 6 April 2015. HSE has published draft legal guidance before the Regulations come in to help anyone who has duties under the Regulations to prepare in advance.
Please note the draft Regulations within the guidance have been amended following consultation. The Regulations and this draft Legal series guidance may be subject to change while the Regulations are awaiting Parliamentary approval. The final version of the Legal series guidance to support CDM 2015 will be available on 6 April 2015.
What will change?
The technical standards set out in Part 4 of the new Regulations will remain essentially unchanged from those in guidance related to CDM 2007. HSE’s targeting and enforcement policy, as a proportionate and modern regulator, also remains unchanged.
Draft industry guidance
There are a series of draft industry guides for the five dutyholders under CDM 2015, and one for workers. These are available before the Regulations come into force and may be subject to change.
They set out, in practical terms, what actions are required to deliver a safe and healthy construction project.
HSE will also be working with stakeholders in the entertainment industry to provide specific guidance for these sectors. An update letter on their progress is available.
Transitional arrangements
When CDM 2015 comes into force on 6 April 2015, there are transitional arrangements in place that will run for six months from 6 April 2015 to 6 October 2015.
Commenting on the new guidelines, Paul Reeve, ECA Director of Business Services, said: “In many respects, the latest draft CDM 2015 Regulations and guidance track the outgoing 2007 version, but there are some significant additions, including extra duties on many contractors. These will come as a surprise to thousands of companies and two practical challenges will be to explain what’s new to both clients and smaller contractors, and then help them to comply.
“This has been a tough consultative exercise for HSE, but they are on track for new Regulations in April 2015. Although HSE has worked hard to curtail regulatory burdens on small businesses, it’s clear that many small businesses will pick up extra duties in future. The new draft guidance issued by HSE and CONIAC is around 150 pages long, so it seems that even a pared-back version of CDM still needs a lot of explaining.”
I have read through the various guidance notes from the APS and the draft ‘L’ HSE notes. I see that it states several times how the Principal Designer ( in my opinion this may as well called a Planning Supervisor) needs to have knowledge and experience of health and safety…Really? I seem to recall hearing many times during the early years of CDM that many designers simply didn’t to know about site safety, so why should they now? When the 2007 versions came out one of the tenets was ‘the right information to the right people at the right time’.… Read more »