Revised CDM regulations aim to reduce accidents

The revision represents much more than a legal tidying up exercise. Underlying all the changes is one simple aim: to reduce construction accidents and ill health.

While the CHSW requirements for safe working on site are almost unchanged, there are significant changes to CDM relating to how construction health and safety is to be managed.

The principal changes are as follows:

• Construction clients can potentially have a significant influence over the health and safety standards of their project. The revised CDM regulations seek to reinforce the authority of the client and emphasise their key role. To this end, they will be required to check that there are suitable arrangements in place for the project to be managed safely.
• Where a project is notifiable, the role of the planning supervisor will be replaced by a CDM coordinator. The coordinator will be appointed by the client, act as the client’s key adviser and manage the communication and coordination of health and safety information. The coordinator is also required to provide the right information to the right people at the right time, and at the end of the project draw up a health and safety file for the client.
• Designers will be required to eliminate hazards and reduce any remaining risks wherever possible. Their designs should be safe to build, use, clean, maintain and eventually demolish. Designers should also ensure that their designs comply with the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 if appropriate, and that they make relevant information available to those that need to know it.

There will be little change in the general duties on principal contractors and contractors.

The revised CDM regulations will require coordination and cooperation between everyone involved in a project, where necessary to ensure health and safety.

There will also be a greater emphasis on the importance of competence.

Before appointing a designer, coordinator, principal contractor or contractor, whoever is making that appointment must take reasonable steps to ensure that the person being appointed is competent. There will also be a corresponding duty on people not to accept an appointment, unless they possess the necessary skills and competencies required for their part in the project. The Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) will provide detailed guidance on competence, and the assessment of competence.

CDM 2007 will simplify notification. Projects will be notifiable if they last more than 30 days or 500 person days of construction work, and no project for a domestic client will be notifiable.

Between January and April 2007 more information about CDM 2007 will become available. The HSE will produce an ACOP, and there will also be industry produced guidance.

In summary, the key aims of the revised CDM regulations are:

• To focus on the effective planning and management of risk.
• To reduce bureaucracy. Paperwork should be risk focused, project specific, and of some real use.
• To provide the right information to the right people at the right time.
• To require appropriate levels of competence.

The experience of the past 11 years has shaped the revision of CDM. The revised regulations are intended to provide the construction industry with the opportunity and the means to make the next step-change in health and safety performance.