From TL Safety
When we issued our January 2015 Newsletter we mentioned that the Construction Design and Management Regulations were changing this year provided that the HSE could publish their draft legal guidance L153 this month. We were not convinced that they would manage it in time but they issued it on the 9th January 2015. This may affect many of you in some way if you have received this communication.
Generally our Clients who carry out construction and refurbishment work as well as design are fully aware that the CDM Regulations apply to them albeit implementation of it varies considerably from full compliance to practically no compliance.
Those Clients who carry out installation work for other contractors on a site are generally aware that parts of the CDM Regulations apply to them and some of our Clients are fully compliant and others not.
Those of our ad hoc Clients who are not retained who carry out construction work for domestic clients often don’t realise that parts of the CDM compliance requirements still affect them in so far as managing safety when working on any property.
There are some fundamental changes to CDM 2015 that will require you to update your management systems and the way in which you operate. For some of our Clients who are retained and have their safety documentation prepared by TL Safety the changes will not be too drastic. For those Clients who maintain their own management systems (without our input to review and update) the changes may be more significant.
One of the more significant changes within CDM 2015 is that some Domestic projects will now be notifiable and it will require the Principal Contractor to prepare the Construction Phase Plan and manage the health and safety on the site. The property owner “that’s me and you” will now become the Client although on Domestic property this role can be passed on to other “Duty Holders”. This is not the case for none Domestic projects and the Client will now take on board some additional responsibility.
There is a new Duty Holder which is that of “Principal Designer” who will carry out some of the duties of the CDM Co-ordinator who will no longer exist under the new regulations. This means that there is a potential for those who normally act as Designer to take up the role of Principal Designer. On Domestic properties “Contractors” may find themselves acting as a “Principal Contractor” where there is more than one contractor involved in the project.
The new regulations are not effective until the 6th April 2015 but it is recommended that you read the guidance that we have uploaded onto our website here
We have uploaded the HSE’s CDM Regulations L153 as well as industry guidance for:
Projects that have already started before the new regulations come into force will work in accordance with CDM 2007 during the 6 month transition period but will need to appoint a “Principal Designer” before the end of the 6 month transition period. TL Safety will of course continue with supporting Clients and Contractors as CDMc during the transition period or a Construction Safety Advisors. After October 2015 we will no longer carry out the role of CDMc but will simply support Clients, Principal Designers, Designers, Principal Contractors and Contractors to meet their legal obligations as well as the provision of safety audits, safety inspections etc.
Many construction clients are requesting that we have a presence on their worksite 1 or 2 days a week to assist with their compliance needs.
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