Civil Engineering Project Management (4th Edition)
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108 <strong>Civil</strong> <strong>Engineering</strong> <strong>Project</strong> <strong>Management</strong><br />
promote effective health and safety measures by placing certain duties on the<br />
client, designers and contractors involved in a project, and introducing a new<br />
role of planning supervisor. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) administers<br />
and enforces the regulations. The following are the main requirements.<br />
• The client has to appoint a planning supervisor and name the principal<br />
contractor and be reasonably satisfied that they, and also the designers, have<br />
adequate resources and competence to carry out their duties (Regulations 6,<br />
8 and 9). He must provide the planning supervisor with any relevant information<br />
(Regulation 11) and ensure that information in any health and<br />
safety file delivered to him (see below) is kept available for inspection by<br />
persons needing to comply therewith (Regulation 12). The planning supervisor<br />
and principal contractor can be the same person, or the client himself<br />
can act as either or both (Regulation 6(6)).<br />
• The planning supervisor has to notify the HSE of the intended project<br />
(Regulation 7) and ensure that a health and safety plan is prepared in respect<br />
of the project (Regulation 15(1)). He has to ensure that the designers pay<br />
adequate regard to health and safety matters (Regulation 14(a)(b)) and be<br />
in a position to give advice on the competence and adequacy of resources<br />
of designers and contractors (Regulation 14(c)). He ensures that a health and<br />
safety file is prepared for each structure (Regulation 14(d)), which includes<br />
relevant safety information and is kept up to date with any changes during<br />
construction (Regulation 14(e)). He must ensure that the file is delivered to<br />
the client on completion of the construction (Regulation 14(f)).<br />
• The designers have to ensure that any design ‘includes among the design<br />
considerations adequate regard to the need (i) to avoid foreseeable risks’ to<br />
health and safety; (ii) to ‘combat at source (such) risks’; (iii) to ‘give priority<br />
to measures which will protect all persons carrying out construction work or<br />
cleaning work at any time and all persons who may be affected by the work<br />
of such persons’ (Regulation 13(2)(a)). Designers must also ensure that the<br />
design includes ‘adequate information about any aspect of the project or<br />
structure or materials (including articles or substances) which might affect<br />
the health or safety of any person’ (Regulation 13(2)(b)). The foregoing<br />
requirements are to be met ‘to the extent that it is reasonable to expect the<br />
designer to address them at the time the design is prepared and to the extent<br />
that it is otherwise reasonably practicable to do so’ (Regulation 13(3)).<br />
• The principal contractor is required to comply with the health and safety<br />
plan and augment its provisions as necessary during construction (Regulations<br />
15(4) and 16(1)(e)). As principal contractor he has to co-ordinate the<br />
activities of all other contractors and sub-contractors on the site and see<br />
that they comply with the health and safety plan (Regulations 16 and 17).<br />
He must permit employees and self-employed persons to discuss and advise<br />
him on health or safety matters (Regulation 18). All contractors must comply<br />
with rules in the health and safety plan, and clients and self-employed<br />
persons must be informed of the contents of the plan or such part of it as is<br />
relevant to their work (Regulation 19).