Civil Engineering Project Management (4th Edition)

Health and safety regulations 109
Notifiable projects to which all the regulations apply are those where construction
‘will be longer than 30 days or will involve more than 500 person days
of construction work’ (Regulation 2(4)). For ‘domestic’ work – except demolition
or housing estate developments (Regulations 3(8) and 3(3)) – and work
involving less than five construction workers at any one time (Regulation 3(2)),
the design requirements (Regulation 13) only apply. ‘Domestic’ work is defined
as work not carried out in connection with a client’s trade, business or other
undertaking (Regulation 2).
The initial intent of these regulations was to promote better safety standards
in construction by integrating safety into project management. The production
of a safety plan, specifically required to identify risks, should assist in this. But
the designer’s responsibilities for safety are difficult to assess, as it may be
problematic to decide how far designs must be modified to reduce hazards
if this involves substantial extra cost. Also both the designers and the planning
supervisor have responsibility for ensuring that any design pays ‘adequate
regard’ to the need for health and safety measures (Regulations 13(2) and
14(a)), so the question can arise as to who decides what measures are adequate.
10.3 The Health and Safety Plan required under
CDM Regulations
The CDM Regulations require that a Health and Safety Plan be developed
pre-tender and then continued and modified in the construction phase. The
pre-tender plan is to help potential contractors understand the specific risks
of a site and the work to be undertaken. It is drawn together from an assessment
of the site and information from the designers. The aim is to target key issues
and not to spell out the usual hazards of construction which should be apparent
to any competent contractor. Too much detail may obscure vital matters.
The pre-tender plan will be issued to tenderers but need not become a contract
document; if it does there is a possibility that the plan could interfere
with a contractor’s freedom of choice of methods of construction and of dealing
with hazards. However, if a client has specific safety rules, say on an existing
works site, then these should be included in the contract documents as
they are intended to become obligations on the contractor.
The pre-tender plan should include:
• Project description and details of client, planning supervisor and designers.
• Existing safety arrangements and rules, permits and emergency procedures.
• Safety hazards including: access, hazardous materials or structures, existing
services and ground conditions.
• Health hazards including asbestos and contamination.
• Design assumptions and identified risks, co-ordination of future design
changes.