CDM 2015

What does CDM 2015 do?

Complying with CDM 2015 will help ensure that no-one is harmed during the work, and that your building is safe to use and maintain while giving you good value. Effective planning will also help ensure that your work is well managed with fewer unexpected costs and problems

What Do Clients Need To Do?

Many clients, particularly those who only occasionally have construction work done, are not experts in construction work. Although you are not expected to actively manage or supervise the work yourself, you have a big influence over the way the work is carried out. Whatever the size of your project, you decide which designer and contractor will carry out the work and how much money, time and resource is available. The decisions you make have an impact on the health, safety and welfare of workers and others affected by the work. CDM 2015 is not about creating unnecessary and unhelpful processes and paperwork. It is about choosing the right team and helping them to work together to ensure health and safety.

As a client, you need to do the following.

1. Appoint the right people at the right time If more than one contractor will be involved, you will need to appoint (in writing) a principal designer and a principal contractor.
2. Ensure there are arrangements in place for managing and organising the project The work is more likely to be done without harming anyone and on time if it is properly planned and managed. Sometimes the work is complex and uses many different trades. Often it involves high-risk work such as the work listed in the

bulleted list below.

• Falls from height
• Collapse of Excavations
• Collapse of structures
• Exposure to building dusts
• Exposure to asbestos
• Electricity
• Protect members of the public, the client, and others

1. Allow adequate time
2. Provide information to your designer and contractor
3. Communicate with your designer and building contractor
4. Ensure adequate welfare facilities on site
5. Ensure a construction phase plan is in place
6. Keep the health and safety file
7. Protecting members of the public, including your employees
8. Ensure workplaces are designed correctly

Notifying Construction Projects

For some construction work (work lasting longer than 30 days with more than 20 workers working at the same time, or involving 500 person days of work), you need to notify HSE of the project as soon as possible before construction work starts.

Why you should comply with your duties as a client?

If you do not comply with CDM 2015, you are likely to be failing to influence the management of health and safety on your project. This means that your project could be putting workers and others at risk of harm, and that the finished structure may not achieve good standards and be value for money. If you don’t appoint a principal designer or principal contractor you will be responsible for the things that they should have done. Serious breaches of health and safety legislation on your construction project could result in construction work being stopped by HSE or your local authority and additional work may be needed to put things right. In the most serious circumstances, you could be prosecuted.

Fee for Intervention

HSE now recovers the costs of time spent dealing with material breaches of health and safety law. This is known as Fee for Intervention (FFI). FFI applies when an inspector finds something wrong that they believe is serious enough for them to write to you about. A fee is charged for the time spent by the inspector in sorting it out.