At last

http://consultations.hse...i/CD261/consultationHome

Just had my first read of the draft. They are virtually the same as 2007 but aiming to make CDMC's redundant. It seams focused on trying to save money. I feel they are going to remove a lot of competent people from the construction industry and I fear a reduction in standards, generic tick box material produced by people lacking H&S knowledge and skill. Buildings for the future difficult to maintain and demolish. I'm sure they will win awards for looking pretty though!

So the CDM C role will vanish but the people doing that role presently will not. I can see lots of them becoming employed by Designers who suddenly have responsibility for the Principal Designer added duties but will need a helping hand with the work?

The difference will be they will not work alone but hand in hand with the design team.

Other points I like involve competence assessments and the need for site visitors to produce a CSCS or similar card.

Rodger, If you look at paragraph 53 which states: "HSE believes that the competence of construction industry professionals should be overseen by, and be the responsibility of, the relevant professional bodies and institutions".

Hopefully this will be the end of the CSCS test screen nonsense for us and all we will need to show in the future is our IOSH membership card.

There's a lot of nonsense in this CD - starts from the point of view of driving up compliance on small projects and then concludes that this is unlikely to happen.

I've spent nearly 21 years training our designers not to teach competent contractors how to suck eggs as the client is prohibited from appointing an incompetent contractor.

Now, instead of reinforcing the message that competence checks should not be bureaucratic - see ACOP 203-207 - and getting this message over to clients, HSE attempting to rely of HSWA SS2 and 3 and requirements for information, instruction, training and supervision. These do not necessarily achieve competence.

So now my designers will need to tell a contractor that a scaffold comes with double guard-rails and toe-boards and to tell a major civil engineering contractor that the greatest risk with parallel road widening is the interface with live traffic.

All as predicted in designer CDM training last February - all down to "copy out".

New duties on domestic clients to come into force a few weeks before a General Election and before renegotiation of parent directive in 2015, when it will probably be clarified that the directive was never intended to put duties on domestic clients.

...and some of the claimed cost savings are pure fiction, partly down to the assertion that the default position for CDMC is an external appointment - certainly not on 95% of our CDMC appointments where we are a designer and usually lead designer.

What I meant to say was removing the need for CSCS card - apologies

I may have missed something but does it now appear that the client will be responsible for ensuring he is aware of his duties and there is no one else responsible for ensuring this?

No worries there then. As we all know designers and contractors are fully conversant with the current regulations and associated duties. I cannot see how this can possibly fail.
Regards

As archn correctly pointed out, it does say in reg 10-(1) Duties of designers. A designer must not commence work in relation to a project unless satisfied that the Client is aware of his duties under the regulations.
A similair provision exists in relation to contractors commencing works. Reg 149(1).

How many designers will be aware of this reg ? Probably as many who are currently aware thatdetailed design should not commence unless a CDMC has been appointed and that one of their first duties as a designer is to advsie the client he needs to appoint a CDMC.

I also find it quite telling that, as it is very likely to affect the design profession there is no mention of the regulation change proposals on any of the designers professional organisation websites, RIBA etc. You would think they would be carrying even a little info to make their members aware. Time yet I suppose.

Regards

It is not enough to continually change the regulations that is not what is needed I noticed as will a lot of us that the emphasis in CD261 is predominantly around saving money.

The emphasis should have been on making sure designers in carrying out their work, are competent to avoid foreseeable risks to the health and safety of those involved or affected by the construction, use, maintenance and demolition of the structure. In doing so, designers would be better placed to eliminate hazards which may give rise to risk and reduce the remaining risks from any hazards.

Getting designers to do this effectively should be the driver. Those involved in drafting CD261 will no doubt be employed by some of the biggest design houses widely recognised as world leaders. Sadly their own design teams are frequently found wanting when it comes to discharging their duty's as designers despite the CDM Regulations being in place for twenty years, come on guys get your own design houses in order first, set an example - education not regulation.

The sad truth is that's not going to happen - you can always tell a designer - but you can't tell them much. The more things change the more they stay the same, the Principal Designer is going to need some competent advice and guidance, who is best placed to provide it?

Fill your boots former CDMC's.

The HSE is having to balance the policies of the government of the day.


It is one thing drafting text of regulations that has to fully transpose the requirements of the TMCS Directive, but quite another to "satisfy" conflicting requirements within the Construction Industry, ranging from the large, reputable, competent contractors to the SME's. Unfortunately, excessive credence has been given to SME's who are not likely to put their house in order because they either dont care or they do not bother to look for targeted/easy to apply ionformation that has previously been available. Instead, they cry foul blaming it as a "burden" on the business--you only have to read some of the inuts that went into the red-tape challenge etc --it is mostly the "Daily Mail" variety.

The construction industry also has to take some blame--excessive paperwork and proliferation of so called competence schemes--The competence requirements in CDM 2007 was never meant to result in this.

Designers have had general duties since HASAWA 1974 ( Section 6) and specifically since CDM 94.

My view is that the HSE has been open in highlighting the background to the consultative package--Paras 4 to 29 covers it!

The Construction Industry Advisory Committee (CONIAC) advises the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on the protection of people at work (and others) from hazards to health and safety within the building, civil engineering and engineering construction industry.

Its membership is tripartite, providing representation from key industry stakeholders (including SMEs). This includes design consultants.

Yes, CONIAC has advised the HSE during the process. It's rather a leap to go from that fact to the assertion that the consultation was written by designers ("Those involved in drafting CD261 will no doubt be employed by some of the biggest design houses").

By my count, CONIAC membership is 9 from contractor bodies, 4 from unions, 5 from other (government, training, hse) and only two members who might be regarded as drawn from predominantly designer bodies - both from CIC. One of those is Richard Habgood, who I believe is the same Richard Habgood as is the president of APS - so do you think he's the one that's got it in for CDM-Cs?

Is it your contention that HSE should have produced the proposal without any discussions with any designers?

I have the CDM-C badge - I will certainly not be looking to any Designer outfit for a job.

It will however, be my last subscription to APS - the future of which does not bode well.

Jon

Ridiculous Designers are neither interested or knowledgeable enough. As it is working why change it so much to pretend things are getting better in the UK ?

In most aspects I am in agreement with you as to what will happen. I am allready seeing the spin put on these proposals that "essentially its just another name change" by current organisations that work as CDMC`s.

I dont think its a case of the HSE putting a price on health and safety. Ultimatley they have to do and say what they are told by the Government. As the Government want less health and safety regulations thats what they will get. The top bods at the HSE are in that position not because they are/or have been great health and safety inspectors but because they tow the line and dont rock the boat. Ministers tell them what they want and they make it happen in a way that seems justifiable to the public and industry(with costs and statistics).

Ultimatley designers want to design buildings, thats what they are qualified to do. They do not want to get health and safety quals, they dont want to keep abreast of health and safety devlopments or alerts or do h&s CPD.

The current regs have been around since 2007 and the bulk of designers still could not tell you each of their duties or the hierarchy of control. I know this from experience and from work with some big organisations. I do not think it is realistic that designers are all suddenly going to be conversant and in a position to fulfill these new requirements.

Just my opinion
Regards

Similar to Firesafety101 above. As a consultant since 2007 I have offered H&S Adviser services to small construction sites, and this has always come around to me also doing the CDM-C role, organising the Pre-Con plan, doing the notification. I've felt I had sufficient experience/knowledge to carry out the role. These projects have always found it very convenient that their H&S adviser could also be the CDM-C.

I think this is what the CDM-C role should become - part of an H&S Adviser's role. OK it works for small projects, I can't say for large projects.

NOTE: All the "clients/designers/PC's" that I've worked with over the last 7 years were just 'builders' and had little understanding of how CDM expects them to work together; some projects had just one 'builder' who I 'assigned' as all three! Some projects had a builder and a main contrcator, so two people shared the duties.

In these 7 years, now in the safety adviser role, always the first toolbox talk I would deliver would be CDM Awareness for the 'builder' and his main contractor, and I would have to provide them with necessary documents for pre-construction plan, contractor competence, construction phase plan, site rules, toolbox talks on work at height, silica dust, scaffold inspections etc etc.

Whatever CDM2015 becomes I expect I can continue providing both services to small builders?

JohnW

I haven't seen that spin in the wild yet, but I was expecting it.

I did wonder whether an existing CDM-C could now market themselves as a PD. I note, however, that it seems not to be allowed by the regulations - the definition of PD is that the PD is a designer, and the definition of designer is that they prepare or modify the design. For all their vocal denigrating of designers (rising again in this thread), I see very few CDM-Cs that actually have design experience or qualifications (the ICE, for example, wants a Masters degree in civil engineering and several years experience or many years experience and demonstrable learning before you can undertake the peer review process).

I also wonder whether many of the CDM-Cs who have been quick to attack the competence and capability of designers will actually want to take on the liabilities and responsibilities of being a designer, even if they had the ability.



Other than the minor quibble that many of them don't want to design buildings because bridges and towers and earthworks and so on are mostly much more interesting, this is true. If they wanted to be a CDM-C, they'd be a CDM-C - it's a relatively easy path for an already qualified civil or structural designer - it was much, much easier for me to become RMaPS than it was for me to become CEng MICE.



I'm less sure about this. I think most of my colleagues know ERIC. I'm not sure they all could all quote all their duties - I think they'd forget they need to be adequately resourced and that they have an explicit duty to cooperate and co-ordinate. However, I'm not sure they need to know that - they all know what they need to know to comply with the law, mainly by working within the company procedures and processes. If they need to know the precise regulation duties, they can consult our procedures, or our intranet, or the ACOP, or any of the many places they can easily actually check.

Which leads neatly to one issue not seeming to raise much controversy yet - the elimination of that ACOP. I personally think that a mistake. I think the argument 'we'll make the legislation simpler then people won't need the ACOP, they'll just read the legislation' is completely bogus. No-on in their right mind would suggest simplifying the process of learning to drive by abolishing the Highway Code and letting people read the acts directly, even if you did shorten those acts a bit at the same time.

I certainly isn't straightforward - in my experience legislation practically never is, which is why the sentiment that no-one will need an ACOP because the legislation will be easy to read is bogus.

I have always read that definition as meaning that within an organisation doing design, a manager or design team leader can't evade CDM responsibilities by saying they didn't actually do the design because they personally didn't actually do the calculations. If you didn't have that clause, there'd be scope for pinning all the blame on junior design team members who are more likely to have done the specific individual calculations.

Effectively, I'm arguing that 'person under their control' means an employee (or other employee of the same organisation) but not a subcontractor. There's a little (implicit) support for that view in the ACOP: 115 (b) "arranging for their employees or other people under their control to prepare designs" but I guess it would need case law to resolve definitively - I can't find any authoritative guidance on the interpretation.

Besides, even if it could include subcontractors, this means that a former CDM-C who now wants to be a PD would need to be appointing the other designers themselves - with the consequent liabilities for all the work done. So if they appoint a designer and the designer doesn't deliver, the client will be taking the ex-CDM-C-now-PD to court to recover damages, not the designer. The ex-CDM-C will then need to recover his losses from the real designer. I don't see many CDM-Cs wanting that liability. How many CDM-C's have PII that covers liability for preparing designs?

That is, if this ex-CDM-C wants to now be a PD, and rely on that 'under their control' clause, they need to take on all the liabilities arising from the fact that they are no longer advising and assisting, they are now controlling.



I'm not convinced by this argument. The clause clearly doesn't fit a strict logical analysis because if the client MUST appoint a PD, then he can't not appoint one, and the second part of 6 is entirely redundant. So it has to be interpreted more flexibly.

I don't think the specification that the client must fulfil a particular role can be extrapolated as redefining the explicit definition of that role in the interpretation section. If the authors meant that the PD need not be a designer, the definition could easily have been written to say so - "principal designer means the person appointed under regulation 6(1)(b) to perform the functions in regulations 12 and 13" and hey presto there's no requirement that the PD be a designer.

Had an interesting discussion with one of our major construction clients to-day re the proposed CDM Regulations 2014. His organisation has already started drafting new procurement requirements for "Principal Designers", based on their assumption that the final Regulations will be based on the Consultative document. They are NOT stipulating any specific health and safety qualifications / experience, but propose using PAS 91 and SSIP as the basis of future PD & Contractor appointments.

Interestingly, they mentioned (unofficially) that they expect PD's to employ former CDMC's as in-house H&S advisers, and that overall the expect the new Regulations to be "cost neutral".