With reference to Paragraph 45 of L153, why is a Health & Safety File only required for projects involving more than one contractor? Why not single contractor projects as well?

Hi bod

The simple answer is that (pre-Brexit) it had been longstanding practice for UK Governments of different political persuasions to follow a principle of "copy and paste" to avoid "gold plating" when drafting Regulations required to implement EC occupational safety and health Directives, in this case the Temporary or Mobile Construction Sites Directive.

TMCSD doesn't require a safety and health file for any project with only a single Contractor and that was taken forward in the three iterations of CDM to date.

It might not be entirely a rational way to approach the value of a CDM Health and Safety File, but CDM has never emphasised that any HSF should be a living document that should get updated,  AS APPROPRIATE, during the lifetime of whatever structure it relates to.

So the factory gets a new coat of paint. IF that leaves some residual "significant risk" (as defined at the back of L153, the current HSE guidance on CDM 2015) then any existing HSF shouldn't need amendment.

But suppose the flood comes and someone has to deal with a floor that may have asbestos containing materials in the floor tiles or the adhesive sticking them to the concrete underneath, this might be done by a single Contractor. Surely the occupier of the premises would want some documentation to confirm whether:

(a) the asbestos containing materials have been removed with documentation showing that this has been successfually completed or perhaps

(b) a decision has been to overlay new flooring over existing, so as to avoid the risks of disturbing the ACMs. Hence a residual risk in the "structure" remains and the factory occupier needs to know about it (assuming they don't have this in an Asbestos Management Plan already).

But similarly with the repainting, may be that has included removing the lead based paint. Wouldn't it be sensible to update the HSF to explain that there is now one less residual risk to worry about? OR to say that the lead based paint is still there but has been overpainted.

In practice this exception in CDM in terms of single contractor projects is probably not that critical as the Health and Safety File or Files has probably been the least well implemented requirement of CDM even on larger projects.