CDM regulations: duties by role, F10 notification and CDM consultancy

Regulation 2 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 defines construction work widely. It includes building something new; the alteration, conversion, fitting out, renovation, repair, redecoration, maintenance and demolition of a structure; site clearance and excavation; and installing or removing electrical, gas and similar services fixed to a structure. A structure includes a building, a road, a wall, a pipeline and fixed plant, and the scaffolding put up to do the work.

So a shop refit, a new canopy, a mezzanine floor or rewiring a warehouse is construction work, and the business that has it done is a commercial client with duties of its own. Northern Ireland has its own 2016 Regulations.

HSE lists seven kinds of duty holder. One person or business can hold several roles if they have the skills, knowledge, experience and, for an organisation, the organisational capability each one needs.

Commercial clients

A commercial client is anyone who has construction work done as part of a business, whether or not it trades for profit. Regulation 4 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 requires the client to make suitable arrangements for managing the project, with enough time and resources, and to keep them under review. As the client you must:

• appoint designers and contractors with the skills, knowledge and experience for the work, and take reasonable steps to check they have them
• give every designer and contractor appointed or being considered your pre-construction information, such as asbestos surveys, structural drawings and any existing health and safety file, as soon as practicable
• make sure a construction phase plan is drawn up before the construction phase begins, and that welfare facilities are provided
• where there is more than one contractor, appoint a principal designer and a principal contractor in writing, and take reasonable steps to make sure they carry out their duties
• notify HSE if the project is notifiable
• keep the health and safety file available, and hand it to whoever acquires the building if you dispose of it

If you appoint no principal designer or principal contractor, regulation 5 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 makes you carry out that role's duties yourself. Our guide to working with contractors covers what to check before you appoint one.

Domestic clients

A domestic client is someone having work done on their own home, or a family member's, that is unconnected with any business. Regulation 7 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 passes their client duties to the contractor on a single-contractor job, to the principal contractor where there is more than one, or to the principal designer under a written agreement. Landlords and housing associations are commercial clients, and so is a business attached to a home, such as a shop.

Principal designers

The principal designer is the designer the client appoints in writing, on a project with more than one contractor, to plan, manage, monitor and coordinate health and safety in the pre-construction phase. Regulation 11 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 requires them to identify and eliminate or control foreseeable risks, make sure the other designers meet their duties, help the client with the pre-construction information and liaise with the principal contractor. They also prepare the health and safety file. The role can go to an architect or engineer, a contractor that designs, or the client itself, as long as they have control over the pre-construction phase.

Designers

Anyone who prepares or modifies a design as part of a business is a designer, including contractors, tradespeople and clients who specify how something is built. Regulation 9 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 requires a designer to check the client is aware of its duties before starting, and in the design to eliminate, so far as is reasonably practicable, foreseeable risks to anyone carrying out or affected by the construction work, maintaining or cleaning the structure, or using it as a workplace. Where a risk cannot be eliminated, they reduce or control it and pass information about it to the principal designer and into the health and safety file.

Principal contractors

The principal contractor is the contractor the client appoints in writing to plan, manage, monitor and coordinate the construction phase where there is more than one contractor. Regulation 13 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 requires them to organise cooperation between contractors, make sure a suitable site induction is provided, take the necessary steps to keep unauthorised people off site and provide welfare facilities. They draw up the construction phase plan and keep it under review, and regulation 14 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 requires them to consult and engage with workers on their health, safety and welfare.

Contractors

A contractor is anyone who carries out, manages or controls construction work as part of a business, from a main contractor to a self-employed electrician. Regulation 15 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 requires every contractor to:

• plan, manage and monitor its own work
• employ or appoint only people who have the skills, knowledge, training and experience for their tasks, or are in the process of obtaining them
• give each worker appropriate supervision, instructions and information, including a site induction where the principal contractor has not provided one

Where there is more than one contractor, each follows the directions of the principal designer and principal contractor, and the parts of the construction phase plan that cover its work. A contractor working alone draws up the plan itself.

Workers

Workers are the people working for or under the control of a contractor on site, supervisors included. Regulation 8 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 requires them to report anything likely to endanger themselves or others.

Every construction project needs a construction phase plan before work starts. The principal contractor draws it up, or the contractor where there is only one, and the client must make sure it exists.

Under regulation 12 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, the plan must set out the health and safety arrangements and site rules, taking account where necessary of the industrial activities taking place on the construction site. It must include specific measures for any work in the particular-risk categories the Regulations list, such as assembling or dismantling heavy prefabricated components. On a site that keeps trading, those activities can be your own forklifts or production line working where the contractors are.

HSE's guidance, L153, suggests the plan cover the project team, site rules, cooperation between contractors, worker involvement, induction, welfare and emergency procedures. It should stay proportionate, leaving out generic risk assessments and detailed method statements. Our guide to RAMS covers what a good method statement contains. For small, routine jobs, HSE publishes a short template, CIS80.

The health and safety file

Projects with more than one contractor also need a health and safety file, which holds the information someone will need to carry out later work on the structure safely, such as maintenance, refurbishment or demolition. Under regulation 12 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, the principal designer prepares it and keeps it up to date. At the end of the project the principal designer passes it to the client, or the principal contractor does if the principal designer's appointment has already ended. The client keeps it available, and passes it on if it disposes of the building. L153 suggests the file record safe working loads for floors and roofs, hazardous materials, significant services and as-built drawings, along with any hazards that were not designed out, such as asbestos.

An F10 is HSE's online form for notifying a construction project. Regulation 6 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 makes a project notifiable if the construction work on site is scheduled to:

• last longer than 30 working days and have more than 20 workers working at the same time at any point in the project; or
• exceed 500 person days.

HSE counts every day on which construction work is likely to take place, weekends and bank holidays included, even if the work that day is short. The tests are separate. Eleven people working for 50 days make 550 person days, so that project is notifiable although it never has more than 20 workers on site. A two-week job with two contractors and six people needs no F10, though it still needs a principal designer and a principal contractor.

The client notifies, as soon as is practicable before the construction phase begins, and L153 says it may ask someone else to submit the notice on its behalf. Preparing and submitting it is part of our CDM service. For a domestic client, the contractor, principal contractor or principal designer who has taken on the client duties notifies.

The notice must contain the 15 particulars in Schedule 1 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, including the site address, the planned start date and a declaration signed by or for the client that it is aware of its duties. It has to be displayed in the site office and updated if necessary.

HSE takes notifications only through the online F10 form. For a notifiable project with one contractor, its guidance says to enter that contractor as both principal designer and principal contractor. If a project grows into the thresholds after it starts, L153 says the client must notify as soon as possible.