Apart from L153 and the CITB booklets, does anyone know a useful source of advice to give designers about exactly what risk information should be communicated?

I'm always reading things telling PCs to control general site risks which aren't in any way unusual, or in many cases even anything to do with the design. I got one today which warned about sun exposure!

I communicate with designers (part of the business I look after is a construction client and PD, other parts are PC or Contractor) and challenge where needed but I'd love to be able to point them to something helpful which is a bit more specific than page 14 of the designers CITB guidance.

HSE had an old CDM 2007 presentation to designers which has a lot of useful info, something more up to date would be great. I'd like to help them improve rather than just reject and challenge.

Thanks.

John, thanks for the points - I guess from what you say that you think a designer should be raising things like this? I appreciate you're not alone or I wouldn't receive documents like the three I read today which between them had not a single (in my opinion only!) genuinely design-related risk.

I've tried to take the line that designer's job is quite categorically not to highlight significant risks which just happen to exist on construction sites. Like the sun. Or the rain. Or the fact that you might trip over a stray rock. Those should be the PC's responsibility unless some element of their actual design is involved (and not just "we're building houses so we'll be outside").

You may well think designer's duties are all completely explained on the HSE web pages (I don't, by the way, as you can probably tell!), but what I'm trying to do is help people who believe

a) they are required to submit a Design Risk Assessment document, usually chock full of risks NOT arising from or made more significant by their design, as well as a whole pile of control measures which are not their responsibility, and

b) don't find it as easy as we do to tease out from the HSE guidance the confidence to limit the scope of what they write about, so they end up covering everything they can think of.

If I've missed what I'm looking for on the HSE site and that's what you were pointing me too, I apologise and will clean my glasses :)

This is also a bug bare if my job.

Sometimes there is a fine line between what is a design risk/issue, which is often more of a work sequence issue of how the construction activity is carried out.

I certainly dont see it as a designers role to tell a PC how to use ladders properly, to advise about sunburn risks from working out doors etc.

Gramsay

There's some excellent guidance published by CIRIA, which covers various risks that designers should address complete with graphics.

HSE left much in the hands of Industry, CITB and safetyindesign.org this time round to develop industry guidance which IMO has not been forthcoming.
Much of what used to be available on the web (Red/Amber Green lists, etc.) is now gone or else impossible to track down.

2 points.

As a general rule of thumb, the designer or principal designer should be looking for confirmation, acknowledgement or developed arrangements to mitigate risks that the competent contractor couldn't be expected to be aware of and which couldn't be designed out. This includes sequencing, false-work, etc.
In short, any item highlighted in the preconstruction information should be worthy of inclusion and equally worthy of a response via initial Construction Phase Plan.

Point2. For those Designers still working under the perceived risk of litigation, erring on the side of caution and throwing in the kitchen sink: this greatly increases the chance of a significant risk issue being obscured by trivia. In that event, the designer could be found liable - perhaps the more likely scenario.

All in all, CDM has a very sad legacy (much like COSHH), with many professionals led astray by a bandwagon "training" industry, major contractor bureaucracy, etc. Work continues to enable key players to 'unlearn' much of what was previously preached as gospel - and that unfortunately includes "Designer Risk Assessments" (which I've always imagined as coming in a Gucci bag......)

Well put. We get things like Site Security or Manual Handling listed without identifying which elements of the design involve unusual or difficult manual handling risks (which is often actually the case - we have a current project with 400kg granite mullions in an awkward location which were not listed or highlighted anywhere to begin with). This is worse than not mentioning it because you're left unclear as to whether or what the significant risk arising from the design is.

I had one from engineers recently which listed one item only: "Commonplace hazards". To be noted and controlled by a competent PC. Nothing at all about the design :)

This thread wasn't just to moan though, I'll have a look at some of the suggested items and see about putting a short note together.