Operating as what? Are they securing the site or are they sub contractors installing security equipment? Either way why should they not be part of the project?

They are a sub contractor to the PC or the client therefore have contractor duties under CDM.

if they are they are not part of the construction process..and are providing security for the site then NO .. however a Security site risk assessment should have been completed and agreed by "who ever has contracted " them for the security work ...and a full set of security assignment instruction should have been drawn up for the site these will include their respondsibilities for Health and Safety .

Firstly CDM does not use the terminology of sub-contractor, it uses the wording ‘contractor’ either appointment by the PC or anyone else (i.e. Client). Secondly, the PC may give reasonable directions to any contractor and contractors have to comply, whether they have been appointed by the principal contractor or not (if CDM applies). The CDM Regs do not make any definition that any contractor has to be physically involved with the construction work itself, so any contractor working on site (paid or unpaid) would be governed by the CDM Regs and rules laid out by the PC. However, nothing is as straightforward and within the CDM ACoP a paragraph states:- “Anyone who directly employs, engages construction workers or controls or manages construction work is a contractor for the purposes of these Regulations. This includes companies that use their own workforce to do construction work on their own premises. The duties on contractors apply whether the workers are employees or self-employed and to agency workers without distinction.” Of course if you read the entire ACoP and SI and discuss it with your local friendly HSE Inspector, you will come to the conclusion that all contractors engaged on site must comply with these regulations regardless of the work undertaken. ChrisB managed to say it in a one-liner!

freelance safety - thanks for expanding on my one liner ha ha. Securing the site is a duty of the PC so surely it must follow that any methods for security fall within the scope of CDM? I take the point about sub contractor not mentioned in CDM, I used that term as all contractors employed by or under the PC are "subby's".

If they are within the bounds of the site, i.e. entry gate, then they would be on-site. However, the majority of security on construction sites have access to sites, for the obvious reasons - so they fall into a category of a contractor appointed to work on that project. They don’t just tend to walk outside of the boundaries. I’ve actually come across this exact situation resulting in a pending prosecution via the HSE. We must also address judicial precedent when dealing with an issue such as this, rather than solely reliant on the ACoP and SI of CDM. I’ve only quoted a small section relating to contractors, the reasoning for this is that it is regularly misunderstood that contractors have to be ‘construction workers’ for CDM to apply, this of course is not correct. To verify this, just phone your local HSE Inspector and they will tell you that it applies to all contractors whilst CDM applies.