Feel free to antagonise workers at your site however you should have clearly demarked the construction areas and who has responsibility before any works commenced.

If you see something you are unhappy with in the work site of others you have a chat with your contact.

It is unfair on the workers to be presented with two or more potential bosses barking instructions and possibly contradicting one another.

Your other option is to discharge all others and undertake the tasks yourself - thing is you hire contractors because they are specialists and experienced in what they do. 

You have the power to highlight dangerous operations and suggest work is stopped whenever you see anyone doing anything dangerous, however the works relate to you or your employer.  You also have the power to try and contact HSE to report dangerous operations at work (though my attempts at doing that have never been very successful).  These apply whether the work is anything to do with you or not.

We tell all our people on site (whether under our control or not) that if they see anything dangerous they should immediately raise it with the workers and try and get them to stop, then raise it with whatever contacts you have on the site and suggest the work is reviewed.  This is entirely independent of CDM.

I'm slightly surprised at Roundtuit's response.  If you saw a worker about to grab an electrical conductor you knew to be carrying a deadly voltage, would you make a mental note to mention it to the contracts manager when you next saw them?  Personally I'd do what I could to stop the worker grabbing the cable.

None of this is anything to do with CDM - it's basic ethics, in my opinion.

The Client has no right to instruct workers under CDM, but you as an individual have every right to tell anyone to stop doing anything that's dangerous.  

Originally Posted by: achrn

The Client has no right to instruct workers under CDM, but you as an individual have every right to tell anyone to stop doing anything that's dangerous.

I was reading the OP not as an ethical question more a demand for support in a confrontation as though being premises occupier laid a trump card in a construction environment.

Hi Matty

Your first post here, so welcome to the Forums.

Firstly as I read it YOU are not the PD. Either your company or your Project Manager is the PD.

The Contract between your company and the Principal Contractor (or any other Contractor engaged directly by your company) will set out what powers your Contract Administrator (and possibly) PD have to do things such as "STOP the works" The Contract might even give such powers to others in your company to do similar if they observe what they think are dangerous practices, but to be honest I would be surprised if this was the case.

Lots of organisations have policies that say that any of their employees can refuse to work if they think it is unsafe, and sometimes such policies extend to stopping others working if people think it is unsafe. How that would go down if there were a Contractual dispute and a "claim" would depend on the case by case circumstances, but suffice to say if your decision was unsound then a "claim" would likely be successful if made and taken all the way (a rarity).

Nothing in CDM actually addresses such issues directly. 

Essentially if you hand over a part of the site to the Principal Contractor, then subject to any exceptions set out in Contract the PC is now primarily responsible for H&S within the site. However, your company as Client still has residual responsibilities as set out in the "General Duties" of the Client in CDM. Up to your company to decide how to implement such General Duties.

I was once responsible for Fire and Safety working for a motor parts factore when Asbestos was being removed.  there were some 1500 women on production lines and, being women, their eyes are everywhere.

I was constantly interrupted in my work by, sometimes women and other times production line supervisors who were telling me the Asbestos workers were doing stuff wrong. Won't go too much into it but I always approached their supervisos and reported the incidents to them.  No problem at all everything was immediately sorted and apologies received.  I always reported back to the women and they were appreciative.

Having been on both sides of this discussion, I understand the conundrum but ultimately if you see something you have to deal with it. By the time you walk away and pass the information onto the responsible person, someone could be dead.

As the H&S Manager responsible for the Plant, I've always stopped the activity, taken the person in charge of it to the Project Manager and worked with them to find a swift but safe alternative. I believe that I know the site concerned and historically it's always had a proactive approach to H&S and encourgaed it's employee's to get involved !

Irrespective of boundaries and responsibilities and who the works are for, I would always raise any safety concerns I have in a polite and professional manner.

I have intervened and stopped contractor works on a couple of occassions over the years where they were clearly unsafe and in situations where I techinically had no responsibilities for - responses have generally been positive.

My understanding of the situation you describe is you have CDM works underway on your property and there is an principal contractor on site managing the construction phase of the project.  Is your employer the Client for these works?  

If so (and I'm sure you already know) the Client has ultimate responsibility to ensure the PC is doing his job so if this is the case here, it stenghtens your position, although as I stated above, your position doesnt need strenghtened imo.