Safety practitioners attending the SHP Legal Arena were told to “watch this space” in relation to the CDM Regulations 2007, as they may be asked to contribute to a wider study on how well the law is achieving what it set out to do.
Delivering the final session of three days of legal presentations in the SHP Legal Arena, Laura Cameron, of McGrigors law firm, highlighted a recent pilot-study research report by the HSE, which made the case for conducting a much wider evaluation study into the effectiveness of the Regulations.
According to the HSE, the pilot evaluation showed that there are positive signs in terms of CDM 2007 meeting its objectives. However, some respondents have concerns about the effectiveness of CDM 2007 in terms of: minimising bureaucracy; bringing about integrated teams; bringing about better communications and information flow between project-team members; and better competence checks by organisations who appoint other duty-holders.
Some of these issues were picked up by Laura as part of her presentation. She explained that the 2007 Regulations have involved a “stepping-up” of the obligations on clients. These include: appointing a CDM coordinator and principal contractor; checking competence and resources of all appointees; providing pre-construction information; ensuring the construction phase doesn’t start until suitable facilities and a construction-phase plan is in place; ensuring that sufficient time and resources are made available for the project; and providing information for the health and safety file.
She went on to explain the many duties under CDM imposed on designers, the CDM coordinator; the main contractor; and smaller contractors, before summing up general requirements that all parties need to fulfil, including: checking competency; ensuring cooperation and coordination; and reporting and assessing on risks and health and safety issues.
Picking out the pitfalls of CDM that various parties need to watch out for, she said clients often fall down because they fail to ensure they check the competence of parties involved in the work. She explained: “If you’re unable to assess competence, then take advice, and follow the schedule to the [CDM] ACoP, which lists the issues on competence that clients need to be looking out for.”
Designers, she explained, can fall down on failing to reassess safety risks after changes have been made to the original design. Explaining how, in her own experience as a client, the CDM coordinator needed some encouragement to recognise their ongoing duties to the project, she warned that CDM coordinators should be attending all design meetings, especially given one of their key roles is to ensure effective communication and cooperation among all parties.
And, according to Laura, assessing competence of sub-contractors and managing, supervising, monitoring and auditing the work they undertake are the main concerns for principal contractors, and possible reasons why they could find themselves falling foul on CDM.
