What the Law Says

 

The Construction Design and Management Regulations 2015 are the primary legislation governing health and safety in the design and construction of buildings. They apply to all construction projects regardless of size and place defined legal duties on clients, designers and contractors that must be understood, allocated and discharged before work starts and throughout delivery.

 

The Client​

The client is responsible for making suitable arrangements for managing the project, ensuring that those appointments are maintained throughout and that sufficient time and resource is allocated to allow the project to be carried out safely. Domestic clients can transfer their duties to the principal designer or principal contractor but the duties do not disappear.

​

The Principal Designer​

The principal designer is appointed by the client where there is more than one contractor on a project. They are responsible for planning, managing and monitoring health and safety during the pre-construction phase, coordinating the work of the design team and ensuring that foreseeable construction risks are addressed in the design. They also prepare and maintain the health and safety file for handover at completion.

​

The Principal Contractor​

The principal contractor manages health and safety during the construction phase. They are responsible for producing the construction phase plan, managing the activities of contractors on site and ensuring that the construction phase is carried out safely and without risk to workers or others affected by the work.

​

Designers​

All designers have a duty to eliminate foreseeable risks in their designs where reasonably practicable, and to reduce or control risks that cannot be eliminated. This duty applies to architects, engineers, surveyors and any other professional whose design decisions affect how a building is built, maintained or demolished.

​

Notification​

Projects that will last longer than 30 working days with more than 20 workers simultaneously, or exceed 500 person days, must be notified to the Health and Safety Executive before construction work begins. The client is responsible for ensuring notification is made.

​

The Building Safety Act Interface​

The Building Safety Act 2022 extended the role of the principal designer on higher risk buildings, creating new duties that sit alongside and extend existing CDM responsibilities. For projects involving buildings of 18 metres or more, the principal designer must fulfil duties under both regimes and interface with the Building Safety Regulator at each gateway submission.

​

The Health and Safety File​

The health and safety file is a record of information about the building that will be needed by anyone carrying out construction work on it in the future. It is the responsibility of the principal designer to prepare and maintain it and to hand it to the client at project completion. For higher risk buildings it forms part of the golden thread of building information required under the Building Safety Act.

​

What this means in practice

​

CDM is frequently treated as a documentation exercise. In practice it is a framework for managing real risk on live projects. Getting appointments right, understanding what each duty holder is responsible for and maintaining records through to handover protects clients, designers and contractors from liability, enforcement action and project delay.

​

The starting point is understanding what the regulations require of you for your specific project and role. That is where we can help.