Posted By Crim
Lala,

As long as you believe you have the necessary competency to carry the role then you should go for it. There is a first time for everything. It may be a good thing to have a Health and Safety person acting as the Coordinator but you need to ensure you have the necessary knowledge to handle the Design team and also to be a proper link between all parties.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the new Regs require much more time devoted by the Coordinator than in the past, this is also something you, and your boss need to consider.

Posted By GSP
I'm not sure he is even referring to CDM coordinator as that role doesn't even exist in CDM Regs.

I think/assume what he means is, he plans to act as Clients Agent?

Posted By JPK
I think that the foremost thing to consider when looking at this role, is the support you will receive from the Client/your Employer.

If you are confident with the new challenge be honest about your concerns. Your employer should provide the support you need, as the experience you will gain from this will put you in good stead for similar projects in the future.

If/when you believe you will receive the required support, go for it!

Posted By Jonathan Sandler CMIOSH
Lala, I would not deem you as competent, do you have qualifications under 16th Editions?
Are you competent person fire risk? is there a lift involved, is that being refurbished?
break the task down into sections, ask yourself are you competent to alter and change any of the documents that will be needed to do the project?
Are you a competend designer?
Sorry to be so blunt, this is what the new regs require of the co-ordinator. Cooperation, communication.
Regrads

Posted By Granville Jenkins
Hi Lala

I don't want to worry you unnecessarily, but from what you have said I would suggest that you steer well clear of offering your services as the 'client coordinator'.

You mention that you have never dealt with CDM, if this is true then a project of this size is not a good point to start from!
Also with no practical CDM experience it would be difficult to perceive that you could ever be considered as being anywhere near the competent person for a project of the size you have described. Your best way forward if you really want to get involved with CDM is to implement the spirit of CDM into smaller projects which do not come under CDM (as a dry run), once you are confident with the processes involved you can then move on to say small projects which just fall into the requirements of the CDM Regulations, once again, when you are confident and you have a number of smaller CDM projects under your belt you could move on to larger and larger projects - that's the safe way of going forward!!

If your organisation does not have anyone with suitable and sufficient experience to act as the 'client coordinator' I would suggest that an independent 'client coordinator' is appointed and that you are included on the project team as the clients representative for health and safety, then you will be in an ideal position to gain valuable experience in the field of CDM.

Getting it wrong with CDM can have serious consequences and I suggest that you consider the personal penalties which are attached to the Health and Safety at Work etc Act if something were to go wrong and you were 'hung out to dry' by your employer!

One final comment: The cost of employing a 'client coordinator' would be minimal when compared to the overall cost of the project, and would be a price well worth paying for your peace of mind!

Kind Regards
Granville

Posted By Robert K Lewis
Crim

Note that I said PRIMARILY in my response and I will continue to firmly make that point. The cases where an individual can fulfill the role are few and far between. As a number of posters on this thread have pointed out the range of knowledge and hence also competency required on even a refurbishment means that a single individual is unlikely to be suitable.

I do not understand why we keep trying to make the role one for a single person or even argue that it is the team leader alone that is the CDMC. The regs talk of appointing a person to be the coordinator in exactly the same way that they talk of appointing a person to be contractor. We do not call the individual contract manager or project manager the Contractor so why oh why do we need to do so with the CDMC.

The reason the PS role failed in my view was because it became so individualised and the appointment then lacked the support of the organisation supplying the PS function. If clients only appointed organisations as the PS or CDMC then a level of corporate accountability could be maintained. The question posed in the original posting used the term Client Coordinator and one has the sense that many incorrect understandings and partial knowledge was clouding a serious situation and decision.

I have worked in the construction safety environment for more years than I care to reveal and have worked in chemical plant design in a previous existence but I would not move forwards into a role such as Lala outlines, there are far too many potholes and snares in the road for a single set of skills to determine. More importantly I do not think the employer even realises what exactly is being proposed.

Yes I freely admit I would rather that an individual is never appointed as CDMC, or PS currently, but that is also in part a response to the personal exposure to risk and pressure that such individuals will encounter. The chips are down now for clients to demonstrate to the HSE that they are responsible in managing their duties, this therefore means greater pressure on the CDMC and PC etc to perform their roles competently.

Bob

Posted By Robert K Lewis
There is a sense though in which one could argue that while an individual may perform the role his/her employing company should actually be appointed and named. Sorry to keep hitting this one but I think it has led to a fracturing of H&S effort in construction with one organisation claiming to the THE professional organisation for construction safety, and it is not IOSH! Having said that we will have to join them if we are to be recognised as competent H&S professionals - What price our IOSH construction specialist group in all this?

Bob

Posted By Dave McIness
Ken

That's just why I believe that Chartered Construction Professionals (with CMIOSH as well) are the best parties to appoint to role.

CMIOSH alone is not sufficient to demonstrate competence, even if one has spent more years than they care to remember in the construction industry. As I have stated before, you need to know the construction industry as well as health and safety, and unfortunately most CMIOSH do not seem to understand that the construction industry involves a lot more than just what happens on site. In terms of time scales, the site works are generally only a small part of the total project.

This may anger a lot of IOSH members, but I truly believe that this is why we have so many problems.

BTW I am not advocating the use of chartered construction professionals with no H&S competence either! That is another story for another place.

Dave

Posted By Dave McIness
Hi Bob

I don't necessarily disagree with what you are saying, yes we need a team approach, BUT (and a big but) we must have one COMPETENT individual to lead and manage such teams, with the other team members working in the background to support the team leader. Otherwise we are going to be dealing with committees and we all know what that will mean, not only for the progress of the project, but also for the name and professional status of those working in the safety industry!

The competence of named key individuals within the team must always be assessed as part of the company's overall assessment, otherwise you will end up with a fresh and enthusiastic graduate running the show without the necessary skills and knowledge that are often needed.

I cannot see any way that an organisation can be assessed without knowing who the individuals working on the project will be.

If for example a large competent multi-disciplinary consultancy who has decades of experience in exactly the same type of project is appointed and then sends out 3 juniors to manage the project, does that make them competent - I think not!

I therefore do not see how an organisation can be assesses without assessing the skills and competence of those they propose to use on the project - hence the need for individual qualifications.

Dave

Posted By Arran Linton - Smith
Crim,

Could you please ask the above question as a new thread?

Posted By Crim
Arran

Your wish is my command!

Posted By Granville Jenkins
Hi Good comments have been made. But now I would like to state my position - you can either agree or disagree with what I am about to say, that is your right to your own opinion (or words to that effect!!);

My point is that I am not in agreement with the revision to the CDM Regulations and I believe (I stand to be corrected)that around 20% of the people who also responded to the draft document were of the same opinion.

The reason for my position on this matter is as follows:- accidents happen on site, they do not happen in the meeting room or boardroom, also the Client is sometimes so remote from the actual work and in most cases could hardly be said to be competent in Construction that at the end of the day is why he employs a Principal Contractor (PC) further to this once the contract is signed the Client has little or no say in what goes on on site!
It is my belief that greater responsibility should have been attached to the PC not the Client as at the end of the day it is the PC who is in control of the site and who generally advertise themselves to be fully competent to carry out the work. Making the PC responsible would bring more pressure to bear on the PCs of this world to ensure that they seriously consider site health and safety and train their staff accordingly. However, it should be said that there are some very good PCs in the market and these comments are not aimed at the good guys. Construction can be a very high risk environment and even with the best will in the world accidents will occur, when it does it is always at site level and is more often down to over familiarity with a task and the operative in such situations becomes numb to the dangers or consequences of their actions - regretfully that is part of human nature and one that will be difficult if not impossible to control 100% of the time!

The inclusion of the Construction Health Safety and Welfare Regulations within CDM is an unnecessary piece of juggling with the Regulations, all it does is make what was a specific set of Regulations so broad that they only go confuse or dilute the original intent of the CDM Regulations. The only problem that I had with the existing CDM Regulations was the interpretation put to the role of 'planning supervisor'(PS) - basically it has been interpreted as 'Planning' supervisor that is it covers the planning stages of the project and no more and the PS has no influence to on-site activities, once the contract commences, responsibility passes to the PC.
Ideally the PS (or CC in 2007)should be appointed to oversee the whole project from start to finish and should have the authority to stop work when absolutely necessary.

End point - Lala I believe you have made the right decision, CDM is a minefield for the uninitiated. also it is clear that if an incident had occurred besides attaching blame to you the courts would have also considered your line manager accountable because of appointing someone without suitable and sufficient experience.

I wish you luck in your chosen profession.
Regards
Granville

Posted By Robert Paterson
Hi All

Having read all of the postings. I tend to agree with Granville. Instead of adding more boardroom personnel, would it not be better to employ more H&S persons onsite to police activities. I believe that the full time presence of a Health and Safety person helps to cultivate a safer culture.

I know that I may not have the knowledge of building sites but the figures speak for themselves. If Regulation 7 of the Management Regs was applied more stringently, we would probraly see a trend of reducing accidents.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating when we review results of accidents after the introduction of CDM 2007. That will show if the new legislation is working. Seems that Construction will be just as confusing as before.

Regards
Robert

Posted By Robert K Lewis
DM

Better/realistic hourly rates for a start and competent consultants. After all the PC tends to be appointing them and thus reg 4 must apply.

Bob

Posted By Dave McIness
Bob

I'm not sure if better rates will make that much difference, good competent construction safety consultants are hard to find and they already command a fair price for their services.

By generally raising the rates, aren't we just going to encourage more safety consultants with general, manufacturing, local authority, safety rep backgrounds etc. into the industry.

My point is that although they may be competent in their own field, that does not necessarily make them competent in another field. Foe example if a civil engineer prepared the structural design for a new tower block which later failed, he could be found negligent because he has not necessarily had the training and background education of a structural engineer. So why should H&S be any different?

As a construction safety professional I would not pretend to know about food safety, healthcare or offshore safety issues, so why does a large percentage of our profession believe that they know about the construction industry, when in reality all they may have done is visit the occassional site to carry out the odd site inspection, or prepare a risk assessment for a client?

I feel that by raising fee rates, we risk getting an influx of 'have a go' consultants who feel that they know the construction industry, after all they spent a couple of summers working on building sites whilst at college and are already acting as an advisor for their best mates building company!!

What we need is better client education as to what they should be looking for, rather than believing that one safety practitioner is just the same as another! Perhaps the construction SG could take this on board.

Crim

As i am sure Bob will agree, it is always very difficult to quote rates as they vary so much according to qualifications (safety & others), experience, background, knowledge, type of company, type of client, type of work, duration of contract and the geographic location etc etc.

Dave

Posted By Granville Jenkins
My initial concern was with Lala's position in taking responsibility for something that can have dire consequences, especially if you do not have sufficient competency in the area of CDM. This then stirred me to make comment on the integrity of the proposed revisions to the CDM Regulations. At this time I was not considering the relationship between the Client, Client Coordinator(soon to be!)and the Designer.

My final comment: It is only going to be by introducing site specific duties under the CDM Regulations i.e. it should be part of the contract where projects come within the CDM Regulations that the Principal Contractor shall a) appoint a CC to oversee the contract from start to completion (whether or not this is the Clients CC would be open to discussion), and b) the Principal Contractor to provide nominated and competent persons on each site who would have specific responsibility and accountability for health and safety. Such actions would firmly put accountability for health and safety matters where it needs to be - in the Principal Contractors ball court rather than out in the fringes!!

As Ken so rightly says 'the proof of the pudding is in the cooking' lets hope not too many fingers get burnt in the process!!

Regards
Granville