Does anyone have any practical experience of the impact of the revised regulations with regards to: Term M&E Maintenance Contracts - where the client is forcing the issue of the principal contractor taking on the principal designers role? Term M&E Maintenance Contracts - being defined as a "project"? We are currently being advised by consultant engineers that we must take on both roles otherwise we will be excluded from participating in the tender exercise for a M&E Maintenance Contract. Any input would be of great help, as the revised legislation, in my opinion is poorly worded and defined.

From a client's perspective the imposition of the new regulations makes life difficult. For example, in the case of repairs and maintenance (term contractors) if the client does not appoint a PC and PD the duty falls to the client by default. Clearly the client cannot be the PC and there is a good argument the client cannot take on the role of the PD largely due to the pre-construction phase provisions. So, the client has very little choice but to insist the term contractor takes on both roles. There may be exceptions where the PC is not best suited to the role of PD. In the case of a large project where an external design input is required or a smaller job where a structural engineer may be engaged. In reality the extra burden of the PD role for repairs and maintenance is very little more than the term contractor (PC) would be doing anyway. It is really more about attaching another label to an existing role in my opinion.

It may not have been the answer you were hoping for...when commenting on the pre-construction phase I'm not just alking about pre-construction information, but also the liaison between the PD and PC. Even a relatively simple project, say roof repairs, where a term contractor needs to engage a scaffolder and manage the erction and dismantling, inspection, etc. The duty of a PD will kick in because there is now more than one contractor involved. You cannot seriously expect a client to get involved with arranging the scaffolding - so that must be done by the PD. As I said previously, in practice this would be managed by the PC regardless, so what is the extra imposition other than a job title? For what it's worth, I think the 2015 CDM Regulations have been poorly drafted, unclear and difficult in some areas to fully comply with. So it's about making the best of a bad deal.

Ray, agree with you sentiments about the poor drafting of the document and accept the fact that we shall most likely have to take on the additional role & responsibility. Westonphil - your point is not what I asked, I am already an experienced H&S practitioner especially in the Building Services arena, we work very hard to ensure the health, safety & welfare of our own employees and our sub contractors and we do manage them well. If you read the legislation and the Guidance on Regulations it is very much geared towards Construction Projects with a clear lack of "project" definition and scope.

However, you made other comments in posts further on in the topic of discussion and we are allowed to comment on those as well. Your comments seem to suggest you interpreted the comments as meaning you personally were/are not an experienced and good safety professional, shame really as it was a general point that contractors should then take proper advice from a safety professional.

Andy, Scope - Gas Fire Plant Service & Maintenance, (Boilers, AHU's Water Heaters etc), F-Gas Air Conditioning Plant, Plumbing & Drainage, Legionella Services, (CWST cleaning & disinfection's, shower heads, temperature monitoring etc), Control Panel & electrical Diagnostics, Filter Media, Pumps & Drives, Lighting Maintenance, together with a wide spectrum of sub-contractor derived functions. Ron - Valid point noted, and you have amplified my concerns with regards to clients existing and ongoing responsibility, this particular consultant has worded the tender document to absolve the client of any responsibility and leave the tendering PC's fully responsible for compliance with CDM 2015.

All, Thanks for the responses, have a pretty clear idea of how we now need to proceed on this matter and have started the development of a CDM 2015 "Construction Phase Plan Questionnaire" which should hopefully help our Contracts Team, decide what does/does not fall under the scope of the revised regulations, in accordance with our current H&S Management Systems and what we deem to be routine low risk maintenance activities.