We Project Supervisors Construction Stage at the end of a project with a couple of contractors finishing up. One of the duties is "Ensure adequate and competent safe supervision of staff during the working day" Our client is implying that WE have to physically supervise these contractors Would it be permissible to ensure that the contractors had adequate / competent supervisors? We would also still have to arrange inductions, etc…. I can’t find any guidance to support this but it should roughly follow the same requirements as the Principal Contractor under UK CDM Regs: 175 What principal contractors don’t have to do: Principal contractors don’t have to undertake detailed supervision of contractors’ work. Source: Managing health and safety in construction: Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007. Approved Code of Practice. L144.

Surely if it meant that teh PC must supervise all subcontractors operatives it would say so, explicitly. It certainly isn't required in UK CDM, and 'ensure' explicitly does not mean 'do'. For example, clients are required to ensure that the arrangements for management of the project are adequate (Regulation 9 (1)) but the ACOP is explicit that clients do not need to do the management (ACOP 83 (a)) or even visit site (ACOP 83 (e)). More specifically, clients must ensure that the arrangements for welfare are adequate (Reg 9 (1) (b)) but don't need to provide them (ACOP 83 (c)). But this is UK, so it's a different law.

Michael, As PSCS you are not required to supervise directly. I would expect that your company (as PSCS) have a full-time presence on site. Part of this presence would include on-site supervision. Your job is to co-ordinate and monitor. It is the contractors who have the responsibility to supervise their personnel. I don't have any great experience of CDM-C but from my observations there is little difference between the two. Certainly, any differences I've noticed are minor and "variations on a theme" On the other hand you do have a client who spends time on your project and this does need to be managed. The client is more than entitled to question this but from your information, as provided, is wrong. Go to hsa.ie>construction> on the top of the page is a link to a freely downloadable pdf of our construction regs. This is your go-to document for any questions of this nature. Section 17 will give you the detail you need. Mick