Only domestic projects scheduled to last more than 30 days and involving 20 or more people on site at one time will be required to be notified to the HSE [edited April 1], according to the HSE’s consultation proposals, published yesterday (31 March).
This article has been corrected since publication. For more details on the CDM consultation, please see our further coverage this Friday 4 April
The unexpected extra restriction on labour prompted James Ritchie, head of corporate affairs at the Association of Project Safety, to say that the full regs would only apply to “footballers’ mansions and millionaires digging out basements in London.”
The UK’s interpretation of the CDM regulations previously exempted domestic clients, but the HSE’s new proposal brings the UK into line with the underlying EU directive.
[Added April 1] – The consultation document indicates that the updated version of the CDM Regs will now apply to all projects with more than one contractor, whether domestic and non-domestic.
But limiting the obligation to notify [edited 1 April] to complex domestic projects with 20 people on site simultaneously should avoid the prospect of Middle England having to notify the HSE of their loft and kitchen extensions.
Ritchie told CM: “Some domestic projects can be worth several million pounds, and had previously been completely exempted. But we’ve already seen that excavating millionaires’ basements in London can involve significant safety problems.”
The consultation on updating the CMD Regulations 2007, which also includes the well-trailed proposals to abolish the CDM Coordinator role and remove the accompanying Approved Code of Practice, will run for 10 weeks.
Millionaires’ homes such as footballer Lionel Messi’s near Barcelona will be subject to the new CDM regime
In the consultation document, the HSE proposes that the functions of the CDM Coordinator be transferred to the Principal Designer within the project team. The consultation says that under the current system “appointments are often made too late, too little resource is made available, and those involved in fulfilling the role are often not well embedded in the pre-construction project team.”
It also says that the duty to assess individual and corporate “competence” will be replaced by a duty to inform, instruct, train and supervise. The consultation says: “There is strong evidence to suggest that there is a need to bear down on the excessively bureaucratic response in many parts of the industry to comply with CDM 2007. Such approaches waste valuable resources which could be better targetted at achieving improved outcomes.”
The Approved Code of Practice will also be replaced with “tailored” guidance for each duty holder written by industry-led working groups. The document says that large parts of the ACoP were originally written as guidance, it is difficult to apply and often over-interpreted.
But one unexpected detail is that the new “20 people on site” rule will also form part of the new threshold for notifying the HSE of projects [edited April 1 – the threshold applies to notification only]. In comparison to the existing regulations, where the 30-day duration rule applied, the new proposal will remove many smaller non-domestic projects from the obligation to notify.
Responding to the consultation in general, the APS’s Ritchie said: “A lot will hang on the industry guidance that goes with the new regulations, and how it’s interpreted. People often don’t read the regulations themselves, they read the guidance, so it’s vital it’s explicitly clear.
“A lot will hang on the industry guidance that goes with the new regulations, and how it’s interpreted. People often don’t read the regulations themselves, they read the guidance, so it’s vital it’s explicitly clear.”
James Ritchie, Association for Project Safety
“And what we don’t yet know is whether the role of Principal Designer has to be undertaken by one of the designers on the project, or whether they can use someone else [such as a CDM Coordinator] to discharge that function. From what I’ve read, I can’t see what’s going to stop a designer taking someone else on to do that.
“But looking positively at all of this, if it means that CDM coordination happens at an earlier stage, then that’s a positive for the industry.”
The HSE calculates that simplifying the CDM 2007 regulations will save the construction industry £30m a year due to the removal of the CDM Co-ordinator role, and a further £3m a year due to the reduction in the number of projects meeting the new notification threshold.
Vaughan Burnand, chair of the CIOB’s health and safety advisory committee, said that the inclusion of larger domestic projects in the CDM regime would be a significant change for the industry, but also a potential business opportunity for some.
He said that a full official CIOB response to the consultation would be compiled shortly.
