Health & Safety CDM2015 provides an opportunity for the industry to reject the minimalist paper-pushing, form-filling CDMCs
The next step James Ritchie, Head of External Affairs and Deputy Chief Executive at the Association for Project Safety, talks to Future Constructor & Architect about the next step in construction health and safety.
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s we all await the HSE’s answer to the construction industry’s response to the HSE’s Consultation document, perhaps it is an opportune time for our industry to think about what is really needed by way of construction health and safety risk management advice under a new set of CDM Regulations. We can be pretty sure that a regulatory defined set of competence requirements will not appear in any final set of CDM Regulations. For the past seven years good CDM Coordinators have provided construction clients with advice and guidance regarding their projects and the health and safety implications that need to be considered.
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ability to work with the project design team – a CDMC that allows designers to get on with designing and coordinating the design effectively, provides appropriate advice to both clients and designers where required, plays an active part in project team meetings and does not dictate, if necessary, offers solutions through persuasive discussion and generally becomes a key player in an integrated project team. CDM2015 provides an opportunity for the industry to reject the minimalist paperpushing, form filling CDMCs who rely solely on their ‘statutory appointment’ status to get work. Surely CDMCs with as much experience and knowledge that many have, should be used for that skill, knowledge and ability to the benefit of the project team not just to fill in and submit the F10 Notification to the HSE and prepare pre-construction information obtained from other team members. Appendix 4 of the current CDM Approved Code of Practice has been criticised for creating a fair degree of bureaucracy surrounding prequalification and competence assessments for different duty holder roles. Appendix 5, the lesser known ACoP competence criteria, however has not suffered the same damnation and has always provided a measure of good guidance when appointing a CDM Coordinator for larger, more complex or riskier projects.
Tangible benefits For all but the simplest of projects the Appendix 5 criteria may well be probably closer to where the industry now needs to look for in terms of construction health and safety risk management consultants i.e.
We need to recognise that, in an unregulated world, some people offering a CDM Coordinator service have been doing no more than their interpretation of the bare minimum required by the regulations. If that is all that is required of the project client then so be it but the real benefits and added value to clients come where CDMCs have been asked to provide more than the minimum.
Realistic goals If construction projects are to really benefit from health and safety, then clients need to embrace it from the start, set realistic health and safety goals and be prepared to appoint a person or company with proven
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Many of the construction industry’s leading commercial clients are now advocating the use of CDMCs as construction health and safety consultants