Hi Chris, in my opinion they are NOT contractors (they are not involved in any part of the construction work). As to the issue of Risk assessments, the Principal Contract may need to amend some of his assessments to take account of the presence of these employees or members of the public / customers (e.g. presence of construction plant, equipment, temporary work and materials may have an impact on them). Similarly, if the work of the retail staff could have an effect of the contractor's employees (e.g storage of merchandise, parking their vehicle close to the contractor's compound, shared welfare facilities etc.) they may need to amend their own risk assessments. A meeting between all parties should be facilitated by the CDM co-ordinator before the employees return to the premises, so that all health, safety and welfare issues can be discussed and agreed upon.

Chris, not answering from a CDM viewpoint but from a simple analysis of what controls are needed to keep everyone safe. CDM may specifically define who should do which bits during a project but the principles of what needs doing will not have changed. I am not that conversant with how it works these days, been away from construction for too long. Store must asses risks to their staff from the non-standard working during set up. They are putting their staff into a different situation than normal retailing. I agree that they are not Contractors. However, the project management must liaise with the store to agree joint arrangements for the protection of both and input any impact of the store staff on the project and vice versa. Assuming this is a new store then I would see the project management team as being the lead on ensuring that happens and that any additional hazards/risk controls are included in SSOW on both sides for the period whilst both sides are working on site and for as long as the project team are "in charge". The store team should manage their SSOW once it is agreed not the project team. I guess there comes a time when there is a handover and at that point the store team take over management and any snagging etc is covered usually on permit as a contractor in store. There is even more risk of confusion when this happens in a store that has some separate parts left open for public retail throughout the project as happened at my local Tesco recently. Then the store team should stay the lead on the impact of the project on their patch and the project team stay the lead on their patch and together agree the SSOW for the project. I would expect a written risk assessment for the store employees working in the project area unless you can completely segregate their working area from the project areas and the store has risk assessments to cover their activity. i.e it is no different from work in any store and covered by existing retail risk assessments p48

I think Bob's approach is something along the lines of what I would do, but suggest you go 'back to basics' - it''s difficult to get a 'feel' for exactly what is going on but if the risk is low and the risk of 'conflict' with the construction work is low then some sensible 'phasing' of the work, segregation and management of the risks should, I would have thought, do the trick.

Easy one that do not use the electrics until the electrical contractor verifies they are ready for use Bob