Posted By JasonGould "CDM2007 makes explicit what HSWA has implicitly." Read this somewhere yet meet PC's that think that anything that goes on in their CDM area is their responsibility and cannot understand why the client demands so many assurances which sometimes take their safety man from site safety into rooms going through the 5th rejected Method Statement. Problems also occur when PC is working on clients premises and clients say they have other duties apart from CDM e.g. section 4 HSWA, occupiers liability etc thus need to keep a tight ship. All too often, I get the feeling that this sometimes get confused and lets face it, abused and one or the other parties end up doing too much or too little. Taking aside some clients moral obligations and strictly speaking about CDM and HSWA. How have you guys dealt with this type of problem as I am looking for good examples and answers when queried by either client or Principal Contractor regarding who is responsible for what and how far do the construction activities affect each one. What are the clients liability "watch out" areas when PC has a CDM area on his site. Lets say the following type of clients, Land owner but no work activities. Land owner with general work activities but no permit systems. Land owner on high risk sites with permit systems. Is it really simple or am I correct to thinking it can be a can of worms that really requires individual thought on individual sites and sometimes only ever really properly answered after a accident had occurred and courts decide. Would have loved this one as a course work assignment but now I am like many here and have 10 min today to try and get a suitable answer. Surely others have had this type of question thrown at them and have a model answer at hand. Thanks in advance Jason

Posted By sylvia You are right to be baffled by this. I do wonder why so many people want to take responsibility for someone else’s H&S duties. The HSE don’t care – why should they? They seem to prefer to go for the ‘big client’ if it all goes wrong rather than the little contractor – not sure why. The case they love is “Associated Octel” which – inspectors seem to interpret as generally meaning the client is responsible. That’s not actually what AO decided, and it was a very specialist example. However, it did enlarge the concept of “undertaking” to make it seem that clients are more often in the frame. My take on contracted work (lets leave CDM to one side) is: Landlord only – tell others of any hazards (eg. contaminated land, water, power cables, pipelines etc.). Give control to other party, and keep well away. Landlord engaging contractors to do work – low risk premises. As above, but contractors “bring” the risks with them – these may then affect own employees or visitors. Need to manage this aspect of the work (only). Ie: Don’t care if contractors fall off their own ladder, but do care if they could land on own staff or third party. Easier if work is obviously NOT part of usual business (ie. Undertaking). This is tricky though. Engage contractors on high risk site. The existing hazards are yours, so if the local welder comes onto major hazard site, the effect could take out a small county. Therefore risk becomes so much yours you may as well control it vigorously yourself. Also “undertaking” definition more likely to fall your way (from AO). The client should only be found wanting if they have not taken care over their choice of contractor and / or failed to communicate hazards properly, thus putting own staff and others at risk.