I am a H&S & Facilities manager whose company is currently negociating new premises. The building is in the construction phase and our CAT B fit out is likely to be completed by the CAT A contractors, under the supervision of the building Developers (Landlords Agents).

My company has engaged a high level Project Manager to advise us and we have engaged a Designers to take our project to RIBA stage 4 and produce CAT B plans for the main contractor to build. I have raised a concern regarding the Principal Designer (PD) role and who is undertaking this role as I understand that we as the Client need to appoint the PD in writing. I am told by our Project Manager, who is an external consultant, that the PD role is being discharged by the Designers, who have demonstrated their compentency by appointing a H&S advisor and in his words  ' The role changed under CDM15 and as such the role needs to be discharged by a "Designer" with full awareness of H&S issues.' and as we have a contract with the Designers that we have discharged our obligation to appoint them as PD in writing.   

Having read the Designers contract, other than a line within the cost breakdown of their quote stating an optional cost for Principal Designer I can see no reference to them taking this role. Our Project Manager feels I am being over the top requesting that we should be appointing them in writing specifically to discharge the Principal Designer role under CDM regs. Basically a separate letter asking them to confirm that they are doing this.

My concerns are as clients we are exposed as we have not officially enaged, in writing a Principal Designer, and who exactly the Principal Designer is, this Design Company or the H&S consultants that they have employed to assist them. Also if they have to engage a third party to fulful this role, to me this implies that they are not the 'competent' persons to fulfil this role. I have copies of the H&S consultants CVs and insurance.

Can anyone clarify this sitution and where we stand. My concern is deepened by the fact that I am the H&S manager for the company and I have being over ruled at the moment by the external Project Manager.

Edited by user 17 November 2016 09:37:48(UTC)  | Reason: Spelling correction

My reading of the post suggests you've got your wires crossed somewhere. There is an existing Principal Contractor (presumably appointed by the Developer). Logic suggests there is also an existing Principal Designer for the Project.

Your employer is not, for CDM purposes, therefore the main or sole Client and should not be concerned with CDM 'principal' roles?

Cooperation, consultation and coordination.

The following quote is from the HSE website

A principal designer is a designer who is an organisation or individual (on smaller projects) appointed by the client[1] to take control of the pre-construction phase of any project involving more than one contractor.

This project is past pre construction phase so now is in the hands of the PC

McBride

May I suggest your PM is incorrect

If you as a client are not taking on the role of PD then you need to appoint one in writing, it may well be your appointed designer.

Likewise you may want the appointed PC to take over the role of PD when they start the fit out works, you need to appoint in writing.

There may be a lot of arguing who is competent and experienced to carryout the role of PD, but the regulations are very clear, that as a client you need to appoint the Principal Designer in writing or you assume the duties laid out in the regulations.

We should thank Tony Boyle for some clear thinking on this subject

Dr Tony Boyle warns about the meaning of the ‘pre-construction phase’ in the 2015 Construction (Design and Management) Regulations. Offering tips on how to avoid this pre-construction phase problem and reducing the extent to which you have to revise your CDM documentation.

The intention of CDM 2015 appears to have been to allocate responsibility for health and safety before construction work begins to principal designers, who would hand over this responsibility to principal contractors when construction work started. This is clear from regulations 11(1) and 13(1) which are reproduced below.

11.—(1) The principal designer must plan, manage and monitor the pre-construction phase and coordinate matters relating to health and safety during the pre-construction phase to ensure that, so far as is reasonably practicable, the project is carried out without risks to health or safety.

13.—(1) The principal contractor must plan, manage and monitor the construction phase and coordinate matters relating to health and safety during the construction phase to ensure that, so far as is reasonably practicable, construction work is carried out without risks to health or safety.

As you can see from these regulations, the duties are word-for-word identical and only the phases differ (pre-construction or construction). However, the definitions of pre-construction phase and construction phase are:

“pre-construction phase” means any period of time during which design or preparatory work is carried out for a project and may continue during the construction phase.

“construction phase” means the period of time beginning when construction work in a project starts and ending when construction work in that project is completed;

I’ve put ‘may continue during the construction phase’ in bold to emphasise the fact that this makes the definition meaningless. How can it be pre-construction if it is carried out during construction?

We are strongly advising our CDM clients not to use the term pre-construction phase at all but to use ‘design and preparatory work phase’ instead. This clearly indicates what the phase is about, and uses the CDM definition wording, but does not tie it to any particular phase of construction.

A practical problem also arises because instead of either the principal designer or the principal contractor being responsible for health and safety it is likely that, at least early in the construction phase, they will be sharing the responsibility. You will have to think through how this dual working can best be managed in your organisation.

I think one of the problems with CDM2015 is the fact that they are too generic in terms of content. The construction sector in terms of project size is simply vast. Obviously everything from a small jobbing building/small architects office are caught right up to large multi million £ projects.

The definitions used of the various duties / aspects of CDM are simply too wide and generic.

Example. I am currently looking at an organisation that undertakes a very large number of very simple tasks each year to lots of buildings, they produce a very simple single line drawing following pre approved designs provided by our client. Yet under CDM they are classed as designers (by virtue of producing a simple single line drawing). I would argue they are not designers, but are under taking design realisation - converting pre approved designs into practical reality - by extracting data from the pre-approved designs and making a record of what they did.

However the term 'design realisation' is not used in CDM2015.

CDM is a mess.

On this basis therefore the PM is exactly right.  The OPs organisation is not in control of the construction - they are supplying a design for others to do.44iG76e

I am well retired now but still have a finger on the pulse.  We do well to remember that the intention of CDM is not to complicate matters but to ensure proper management.  Design preparation is a moving feast but once construction has started we cannot have two roles on site with identical duties or we then have conflict.  At some point the duty has to pass to the PC and this has clearly happened in the scenario set before us. 

As for naming of phases that is all semantics as long as the management plan is clear and precise.  We could use colours, fruit or rocks for names as long as they are understood across the whole construction and design team.

Edited by user 19 November 2016 13:23:28(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

The developers PC is on site and will be managing the works under the supervision of the developers own appointed staff.  In the OPs own words they are NEGOTIATING they are not in control.

So back to Tony Boyle - what is the purpose of the PD when the PC is on site? 

Could this be a design and build contract? If so the P.D. could/will be involved throughout the construction phase.

allan

Originally Posted by: achrn

Originally Posted by: fairlieg

If you were doing the fit out yourself then you would be the client.  As you describe it you are the potential occupiers so why have responsibility for something you don't necessarily have a contractural obligation to occupy.

I get the feeling that you are in the latter scenario described by achrn?

I thought they were going to be in the former scenario - building owner has a developer who is going to take it to cat A fitout, at which point (assuming all goes to plan) the OP is taking possession and getting the cat B fitout done.  I don't think the OP has ever been anticipating that they become the client simply because they are future tenants, though some of the responses seem to be attempting to talk the OP out of that opinion.

I suspect it depends what scenario the respondents have dealt with most recently - when we took over the building where I'm sitting now we procurred the cat B fitout.  We were the client.  As I type, parts of the ground floor are a building site because we're refitting reception, several meeting rooms and the toilets - for all of which we the building tenants are the CDM client.  We've arranged the design and we've employed the contractors.  We are paying for it.

In the OP they say "The building is in the construction phase and our CAT B fit out is likely to be completed by the CAT A contractors, under the supervision of the building Developers (Landlords Agents)."

Which is whay I thought the latter