By Mike Taylor, Santia Consulting Ltd
The fanfare of publicity which accompanied the introduction of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) has died away, but since the April 6 launch, what’s actually happened?
Naturally, construction phase plans have been drawn up for each and every new project. Principal Designers have been appointed in all cases where more than one contractor has been engaged. Right..?
Ok, so that’s probably not what has happened, but having said that, are there any early indications that the construction sector has been struggling with the new legislation?
At this stage, it’s hard to tell – there are murmurings that the design community may not have welcomed its new responsibilities with open arms, but beyond that, things seem to have gone a bit quiet.
Of course, that will all change when the first prosecution under CDM 2015 takes place. Many people are looking for a steer on perceived grey areas within the law (for instance, can a construction phase plan for a low risk job be made up of existing information, or does it have to be an additional and distinct document?) and enforcement action may help to provide further clarification.
The question of whether the new regulations have brought about any unintended consequences is one which also requires answering. One of the main aims of CDM 2015 was to reduce the amount of paperwork generated, but it has yet to be established whether this (or indeed the opposite) has been achieved.
What are your experiences of CDM 2015? Has implementation been seamless or have there been significant problems since the law was introduced?
![Mike Taylor Santia]](https://s32891.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Mike-Taylor-Santia.jpg)
Mike Taylor is technical director at Santia Consulting Ltd. He will be presenting SHP’s bi-annual legislation update webinar in October 2015.
I think CDM 2015 has caused a number of problems, especially for those that are involved with repairs/mainteance and other minor works. For those involved in large construction type projects there will be little change from the 2007 iteration. The extent of the issues remain largely unknown because not many will put their hands up and admit non-compliance, whilst others are re-inventing the regulations to suit their purpose. That said, there is no doubt in my mind the new regulations are overly onerous and prescriptive, causing unnecessary confusion and additional bureaucracy. The most contentious issue from my perspective is the… Read more »
In my experience as CDM-C for a variety of infrastructure construction projects, there was a rush to appoint a CDM-C and get projects on the board before the 6th April in order to utilise the transitional arrangements of schedule 4. In some cases this was simply to buy enough time to get adequate management arrangements in place, in others it was simply to ensure that the projects got started in the “right way” before the PC was given the unrestircted “free hand” of having a “1 size fits all” construction Phase plan that pays no attention to the site specific… Read more »
The main problem we’ve had with the CDM 2015 is, How does this effect us? We’re in the events industry and this question has popped up more times that I can count. I’ve asked external consultant companies of the specific requirements and have been direscted to the generic regs. We have now adopted the CDM regs for all events and ‘Mixed’ an event file to make it one complete document to send to clients/ venues.
It has been a struggle to find a way of making this work for us with the limited support online.