As 2015 rapidly disappears in the rear-view mirror it is worth reflecting on the changes the year has brought and the challenges these will present to us in the future, says Michael Spanczak
The new Construction (Design & Management) Regulations (CDM) came into force on 6 April and, with bated breath, we awaited the promised death of the CDM coordinator and realisation of cost savings. They say leopards cannot change their spots but, in the case of the CDM coordinator, many of them have managed to change their spots for stripes and are now in demand as CDM advisors. Perhaps Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr was right: the more we change, in this case CDM, the more things stay the same.
To be fair, there have been real changes as a result of CDM 2015, not least the greater clarity given to the key responsibilities of the client and designer. We can now see that the buck ultimately stops with the client, and designers can no longer hide from “safety by design”.
The end of 2015 saw the publication of the new sentencing guidelines for health and safety offences, which come into effect on 1 February 2016. Some see this as the single most significant development since the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 received Royal Assent on 31 July 1974. Well, perhaps and perhaps not.
What cannot be doubted, however, is that the impact on sentencing for health and safety offences will be significant. For example, we should see an end to pitifully low fines for serious offences – the sort of fines that allowed some people and organisations to make a moral calculation and perhaps treat fines as a cost of doing business the way they want and not as it should be done, i.e. safely.
Both of these changes are interesting in themselves, but perhaps more interesting to anyone “doing” construction is how they will interact with each other and how this interaction will affect the construction sector. Only time will tell, once interpretation and qualified opinions crystallise and are consolidated into sector guidance and agreed practice standards, and judges hand out the first new sentences. However, we should not simply sit passively and wait and see what the judges say; as we move into 2016 we should reflect on the things we know and take action before action is taken against us. Considerations such as:
Recognising that the potential cost of legal penalties will significantly outweigh the cost and effort of getting health and safety right in the first place, it would be wise to take these issues into consideration now.
Michael Spanczak is principal consultant at Turner & Townsend
