Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015
New guidelines for the revised Construction (Design and Management) Regulations will be available to view from today (7 January, 2015), and will come into force on Friday 6 April, 2015. Are you ready?
The revised CDM Regs will affect the roles and responsibilities of companies and clients involved in construction projects across England, Scotland and Wales.
The main six changes, outlined in general by the Health & Safety Executive, are:
1. Structural simplification of the Regulations.
2. Replacement of the Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) with guidance.
3. Replacement of the CDMC role with a new role, called Principal Designer.
4. Removal of explicit competence requirements and replacement with a requirement for appropriate skills.
5. Removal of the current exemption enjoyed by domestic clients.
6. Amending the trigger threshold for appointment of Principal Designer & Principal Contractor.
Changes have been put forward by the HSE following research on what the construction industry thinks about the current (2007) CDM Regulations.
Overall, the industry concluded that the regulations were too bureaucratic and had a heavy burdensome approach to the competence issue, particularly for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
And the pre-construction phase, in particular the ‘client adviser’ role of the CDM Coordinators, was not working well.
Employers will now need to provide information, instruction, training and supervision, with workers having their training needs assessed against the needs of the job and employers to meet the gap in skills knowledge through appropriate training.
For the first time, the revised CDM Regs will apply to domestic clients (homeowners).
Any enforcement action is unlikely to be taken until 6 April, 2016.
Visit www.hse.gov.uk for the new guidelines. If you need any help in enforcing them, C&C Consulting will be very happy to help. Call Matthew St John on 01525 851752.
