The Regulations themselves are essentially the same. Notification thresholds are established by duration of construction work and that defined term does not include design or management work prior to construction/ enabling phase.

Originally Posted by: 6foot4

I had a quick check, as I always thought this related to the mobilisation period that the Principal Contractor had before starting the construction phase.  Re-reading it and the guidance, I am uncertain now. The online F10 form states:

What is the time allocated by the client under regulation 4(1) for the construction work (in weeks, including all planning and preparation, as well as the construction phase)?

I couldn't compare this with older versions as I only have pdf copies which simply state "time allowed by client (in weeks)" which doesn't include all the information that the online version has.  Is this a change or am I reading it incorrectly?

This is a change as far as I am aware, the old F10 was asking for mobilisation, as far as I can tell now, time allowed is the entire planning process and construction period. But it really is not clear.

This is HSE trying to artificially change the law.

Schedule 1 of CDM requires

9. The time allocated by the client....for the construction work.

10. The planned duration of the construction phase.

10. less 9. is effectively the mobilisation period.

Some of our projects are many years in the design and preparation stage, often only to a specimen design.

So, we'll simply continue with an old style F10.

When HSE launched its online notification system in 2007, I went to an IOSH meeting, where an HSE Inspector extolled its virtue.

One in the audience asked what to do if not totally sure when the construction phase was going to start. Response put it down to the nearest month. When I commented that sometime I don't know the nearest year, decade or whether the project would ever get to construction. Response from HSE - well we're moved around every 5 years or so, so that I wouldn't be the Inspector looking at the site, so there's no point in notification.

Wrong answer! First there's a little matter of compliance, and second one of the stated purposes of early notification was to give HSE the opportunity to get involved in the early stages of planning and design when you can make the greatest impact (OK with the cuts at the front line in HSE, this has rarely happened despite the size of some of our projects - construction soon to finish on our £1.3bn scheme, and well on the way on another at £750m) - so the mere fact that the Inspector in place at time of notification wouldn't be the Inspector looking at the site activities immaterial.

I've had another Inspector explain in an email, that 50 notifications over say 3 years on the same project, of no benefit to either HSE or us. But again, there's a little matter of compliance, so its another word F10 for advance works by snail mail to Bootle, so as to avoid risk that in effect the original notification of  a project with perhaps minimum £30m construction value ending up being overridden if I use the online system. "Oh, but you can use the free field text on the online system to explain". Point out that this is time consuming and adds no value to my client. So back to state of the ark technology as HSE has no email capability for receiving notifications.