Posted By Crim
What is this all about?

The tories attempting to have the CDM 2007 Regs annulled? If successful we cannot go back to CDM 94 as they have been revoked, as have Construction Health Safety and Welfare Regs 96.

My head hurts!

Posted By Paul Leadbetter
Has anyone got a link to this story?

Paul

Posted By Paul Leadbetter
Crim

You can now click on my name above to send the information.

Paul

Posted By steve e ashton
There has been some discussion of this already on this forum at :

http://www.iosh.co.uk/in...iew&forum=1&thread=26600

The links and various news items are referenced there.

If CDM2007 is annulled, then presumably it will be as if they had never been.... so any regs etc that they 'revoked' would return to force as if they had never been revoked.. Or at least, thats the way I would see it - but I'm not a constitutional lawyer (or a lawyer of any type come to that).

My guess is there is precious little chance of this actually coming to anything other than a parade of bluster to appease some of the Tory party faithful..

Steve

Posted By Robert K Lewis
Interesting thing about this is that the reply I received from DC's press officer stated that the shadow minister Andrew Selous had met IOSH concerning this. Seems a pity that members have not been informed of these conversations. They are clearly not confidential from the conservative party point of view.

Any comments Ruth?

Bob

Posted By db
You're all joking right? Surely its a wind up?

What isnt common sense about the regs? It contains nothing new and just consolidates clients, designers etc. duties which are already implicitin HSW and Management regs etc. Show me some new regulation which is burdensome that is either not a current duty anyway.

How can the construction industry (who has Shaun as a spokesman for the whole industry) not have been properly consulted despite a consultation process which was in place since March 2005? And one of the key bodies involved being CONIAC?


Answers on a postcard to:

Their all out to get me,
C/O Conspiracy Theorie R Us
Its not fair avenue
Change the recordville

Posted By Gff
what are the SIGNIFICANT changes to the regs that make the duites on relevant parties more onerous than before

Just curious as to what all the fuss is about.

Cameron is into all his propaganda anyway, thus is an attempt to get votes/support in from FSB members and the like.

Outstanging individual

Posted By Robert K Lewis
Shaun

My thoughts were straying wider as I am quite happy to hold my corner. The consultation process was widely spread and much excellent information gained - much not used however but I think the regulations are workable unless some people inside the HSE and externally over-complicate matters.

I was wondering why IOSH has chosen not to mention that they have discussed this with the shadow minister. It does seem odd, or are the conservatives spinning a line? - One simply does not know!

Bob

Posted By Peter Leese
db (or anybody) - explain to me the bit in the regulations where the amount of paperwork has been reduced and how it works in practice - you know, that old job (jobsworth) with a new name?

Common sense tells me to eliminate the PS/Co-ordinator. They had their chance, it was suggested many times, and they blew it.

It's bluff by the conservatives but I wish ....

Posted By Shaun Brennan
Bob

it is dependent on what form the revisions take on the F10

Bugsy

Posted By Shaun Brennan
Bob

is that not a design change, i may be wrong but the client does indeed sign to say he is aware of his duties, i think the whole matter is open to interpretation, i also think that some of the wording has been left wide open and in a court of law, i think a legal team would hard pushed to find a reasonable answer. The whole point was to make the client a little more accountable, i hereby declare that i am aware of my duties under the CDM regs 2007, now i think about it you have a valid point there

Bugsy

Posted By Richard Jones
Dear All,

Some of you have raised questions for IOSH in your postings, which I would like to answer:
o CDM Consultation: IOSH responded to the consultation, with significant input from the Construction SG (http://www.iosh.co.uk/files/condocs/response/pdf%20cdm%20regs%2Epdf) In fact the Construction SG were also involved in the CONIAC working groups set up to help develop the guides produced to complement the ACoP.
o Andrew Selous MP: I met Andrew (one of around 40 MPs and Peers we’ve spoken to this year, as part of our ‘young people’s campaign’). Andrew asked the question, “Did IOSH think the CDM Regulations were just adding bureaucracy?”, to which we answered ‘no’. We pointed out that the new regulations were essentially no different from the old, they merely redefined and clarified key roles and it was the IOSH view that those who create pointless ‘paper mountains’ were misunderstanding the requirements. That was the end of that part of the conversation.
o Future of CDM: the fact that David Cameron has forced this debate, makes no difference to the legislative process…the Regulations will be passed and are not under threat and the slot is a normal part of parliamentary procedure that gives the Conservatives the opportunity to set out their position during a 90-minute (max time) debate. IOSH will be in attendance at this debate.
I hope this answers your questions. In the circumstances, it would not have made a lot of sense to report widely to members that particular part of our discussion with Andrew Selous MP. It was a very short comment during a longer discussion which, in turn, is part of our wider lobbying campaign on a very different issue.
You might be interested to know that we do give updates on all our main lobbying and media relations work in each month's SHP Interface pages. There's also a new campaigns section on this site: http://www.iosh.co.uk/in...fm?go=news.ourcampaigns, and today we launched a new microsite for our Get the best campaign: http://www.iosh.co.uk/index.cfm?go=getthebest.main

Richard Jones
Director of Technical Affairs

Posted By ddraigice
Three were a number of major problems with CDM 94 regs, namely:

Duties not clearly understood especially clients and designers (based on research so not my thoughts!), too complex, burdensome, no clear way to address competency and everyone produced reams of paperwork making the whole process “defensive” and paperwork based rather than risk management based.

However, there were some successes with CDM 94, especially in the areas of design and how that can influence H&S issues.

The new CDM 07 has not changed that much in that it still encompasses the EU directive from which it evolved. However, there are changes, which although cannot in any way said to be burdensome compared to CDM 94, they are still major changes.

These aims of the new regs were to:

Simplify the regs – so out comes all the “is it CDM?” as the notification criteria are simpler

Focus on planning and management – HSE’s aim is to alert people for the need to only produce paperwork where it is necessary. Design risk assessments are the big thing – they are not required (even HSE inspectors have been guilty of asking for these in the past)

The most important part of the regs is the clarification of the competence issue clearly laid out in the AcoP.

New bits in the regs (some – not all!):

Clients:
Clarification of client wrt PFI etc.
Client must not allow work to start before a h&s plan and welfare in place along with adequate resources, time and competence

Basically CDM outlines the existing duties of clients (already implicit under HSW) and makes them explicit.

Co-ordinators:
Advises the client on issues such as competency and more duties to ensure proper co-ordination of the design process. Expected to take on a management advisory role but not required to approve method statements or work practices. Of course, although this is a much meatier role than the PS, there is still probably little a CDM C can do if everyone else is riding roughshod – apart from walk away perhaps. However, they have more explicit duties.

Designers:
Broadly the same but duties given clarity in the AcoP and regs. One area of contention is that they shouldn’t start any design other than initial design work unless a CDM C has been appointed.

Paperwork:
No pretender H&S plan any more – just a duty to pass on information

Contractors:
Stayed relatively the same – although ACoP now states that direct supervision of subbies is not required.

So the underlying principles behind changing the regs are to ensure:

•Focus is on effective planning and management of risk
•Paperwork is risk focused and project specific
• The right information is provided to the right people at the right time

And the biggest (and in my view the part which has the capacity for bringing about the greatest change) is that everyone has a duty to ensure competence.

So the reason that MR Cameron has bowed to the pressure of his cronies and brought the EDM is that the biggest impact will be on clients. They can no longer make crucial decisions on the timing and resources of a project that drastically affect health and safety. Although these duties were implicit under HSW it was quite difficult to enforce without hard evidence. The new regs set out these duties more clearly which in my view can only be a good thing.

Posted By ddraigice
What are your views Peter?

Posted By Peter Leese
Cronyism is partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to public office without regard for their qualifications. In political terms, the word "cronyism" is almost always used derogatorily.

My view is that we should be able to have discussions without derogatory comment. Hence my comment.

Posted By Peter Leese
Jonathan, are you posting in defence of derogatory terms or CDM, or in an attack on a political party or what?

What I don't need is a lesson in language from you.

Posted By Robert K Lewis
Richard

Thank you for your response. However the conservative party obviously saw the conversation as more than a mere passing moment. The phrasing of the email to me implied that a specific meeting had occurred. We now understand very differently. I will need to talk to someone's father-in-law whan I am in Scunthorpe at the weekend!!!

I wonder how much other spin is occurring in all of this "chatter" over CDM07. The HSE have made a good hash of the F10 signature, what else will come out to haunt us?

Bob