An F10 was submitted for work which was completed on the date the F10 expired. We are required to return to site to undertake a small portion of residual works after the passage of a significant period of time. The residual works will come nowhere near the criteria for notification. The original F10 has expired and cannot be edited. Is a new notication then required?

Hi Bod

I think that reading the letter of the CDM Regulations whichever iteration was in force when this project started, that these additional works would be likely to be interpreted as being part of the project, and hence still notifiable.

This is just one of the many examples of projects where the online notification system launched by HSE in 2007 doesn't work.

Options include:

1. The Client defining this as a new project (whatever the Contract says) and NOT notifiable.

2. Asking HSE for advice and probably being told that they don't want to know.

3. Bypasssing the online notification system. CDM does NOT tell you to use the online notification system, but rather to notify details specified in a Schedule to the Regulations.

In ye olden days you could email a paper F10 to the relevant HSE office, but HSE put a stop to this and said that the local office email address was only to be used for requests for waivers on asbestos notifications.

Which then means reverting to snail mail and sending a paper F10 to HSE in Bootle. If your project is in say Glasgow, then this obviously means a delay whilst Bootle process the information and forward it to the Construction Group in the Glasgow office, but that's a fault of HSE's own making.

The problem here is that HSE actually probably don't want to know about these additional works, but if something goes wrong, they could then accuse you of failure to notify the information required by the letter of the Regulations.

So, given that risk I would send them a paper notification, preferably with a copy of the now expired online notification. If HSE find that they are unable to disinter a buried online F10 and update it, that is their problem. You are protected by having evidence that you have done the update notification.

Before I retired MOST of the projects that I was working on were not suited to the online system, so we had a purpose designed template for making sure that WE could update F10s when required and if HSE made a hash of converting these to their online system, we always could show the timeline.

As example of the types of problems we faced, we did lots of work on huge infrastructure projects that might or might not get to construction and where a project might be later split into more than one.

So, we did an initial F10 saying e.g. upgrading a road which is part single carriageway and part dual to full dual along a length of many miles. The Client is A, the Principal Designer is B and the following Designers have already been appointed. The programme says that the first main construction project is planned to start in about April 2027, but there will be numerous advance works packages before that.

Then the first of those advance works packages would be awarded to e.g. a site investigation contractor. So, another F10 specifically for those works. SI across numerous sites along say 20 miles of the route. Due to start on site 10 April 2024 and last 7 weeks.

So far, so good but with the online notification system this second F10 would override the first and suddenly HSE loses memory of the first so, the end of the SI happens and the entire online F10 disappears into the ether and HSE's system thinks that they haven't been told about a project that might be costing £100s of millions!!!

Not that uncommon that we would have multiple Principal Contractors working at the same time. So the SI contractor working at some places, a demolition contractor clearing some buildings to make way for a wider road, and other advance works also happening. 

All entirely legal, just needs co-ordination to make sure that Contractor 1 doesn't step on the toes of Contractor 2.

....AND we had the timeline evidence of what had been notified what, when and where, and perhaps most importantly that original F10 still existed in our files. If it wasn't still in HSE's collective memory, their problem.'

As I recall we were challenged by an Inspector on this on a single occasion. 

Said the Regulations state that A principal contractor is to be appointed.

To which the reply was that the Regulations require the appointment of A principal contractor but that does NOT preclude the appointment of more than ONE.

For the simple reason that the Regulations have to be read with an eye to the Interpretation Act 1978 which says that any reference to the singular includes the plural UNLESS the context makes it apparent that this isn't the case.

CDM has lots of defined terms many of which are VERY often in the plural on a large project.

I would be thinking that if the H  & S file has been handed over to the client, the project has been completed.

Even if the file hasn't been handed over but the works have been completed and handed over to the client,  your short term maintenance work is a 'standalone' job and not notifiable if it's outside the criteria for notification.

If you take the argument futher about snagging being part of the original project, then every new build development with a NHBC or Commercial 10 year warranty is going to have their F10 extended Ad Infinitum

Just IMO of course, other opinions are available, (smiley face)