Are you compliant with the new Health & Safety regulations that safeguard your projectIf you are thinking of carrying out some building work on your home and you need to employ more than one trades person, then the NEW 2015 CDM regulations affect domestic clients, builders, designers and all parties involved in the project!
The Construction (Design and Management) regulations (CDM 2015) are the main set of regulations for managing the health, safety and welfare of construction projects.
CDM applies to all building and construction work and includes new build, demolition, refurbishment, extensions, conversions, repair and maintenance.
The government gave a relaxed 6 month breaking in period which is now over.
Responsibilities of the Domestic Client
- Make suitable arrangements to manage the Health and Safety. This includes making sure that:
- other duty holders are appointed in writing
- sufficient time and resources are allocated
- Ensuring that the construction work can be carried out in a safe manner.
- Understanding design risks and deciding on the control measures to be adopted.
- Ensuring there are suitable welfare facilities for the duration of the project.
- Make sure that the contractor or principal contractor prepares a construction health and safety phase plan
- Prepare a Health & Safety file which is to be maintained throughout the project, this should include all public and professional insurances from all parties, final project drawings, commission certificates and all planning & building regulation approvals. This applies where there is more than one contractor only.
These duties are generally transferred to the contractor, on a single contractor project or a principal contractor, on a project involving more than one contractor. However, the domestic client can choose to have a written agreement for a principal designer to carry out the duties.
The contractor or principal contractor may choose to employ the services of a CDM advisor to work along side them or equally delegate the duties to a principal designer, again this must be a written agreement.
Construction Phase Plan:
This can be carried out by either the Principal CDM Designer or Principal Contractor. It needs to be provided regardless of the project size.
Health and Safety File:
This can be carried out by either the Principal CDM Designer or Principal Contractor. The health and safety file is defined as a file appropriate to the characteristics of the project, containing relevant health and safety information to be taken into account during any subsequent project. The file is only required for projects involving more than one contractor.
