Will new site safety regulations deliver cost savings for construction sector?

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recently launched a consultation on new draft site safety regulations which aim to remove some of the red tape in the construction industry.

HSE is proposing to replace the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 (CDM 2007) and withdraw the Approved Code of Practice (ACOP), which relate mainly to health and safety requirements at temporary or mobile construction sites.

The existing CDM Regulations came into force in April 2007, and implement some of the requirements of the EU’s Temporary or Mobile Construction Sites (TMCS) Directive. They stipulate minimum standards of health, safety and welfare provisions during the construction phase of a project, and require risks to be planned for and managed from the design concept onwards.

According to HSE, the new proposals support the strategic objectives of improved co-ordination, better value for money, improved efficiency and use of technological changes in Construction 2025, the government’s industrial strategy for construction.

But what does it mean in practice for those working in the sector?

The biggest change is the removal of the need for a standalone CDM coordinator, with responsibility for coordination with the requirements of the regulations instead being assigned to the ‘principal designer’ within the project team.

The duty to assess ‘competence’ will be replaced with a new duty on ‘information, instruction, training and supervision’ and the existing Approved Code of Practice (ACoP) will be replaced with tailored guidance.

The proposed changes are designed to improve worker protection while also delivering cost and administrative savings to businesses, says HSE. They include a shortening and simplification of the regulations themselves, and replacing prescriptive requirements for individual and corporate competence with a more generic requirement for those appointing others to carry out construction work to ensure that they have received “appropriate information, instruction, training and supervision to allow them to work safely”.

The new ‘principal designer’ would be responsible for preconstruction coordination, as required by the TMCS Directive. The client’s duty to appoint a principal designer and a principal contractor would be triggered where there is more than one contractor, or it is reasonably anticipated that there would be more than one at any time.

The consultation on the new proposals closes on 6 June 2014.

For more information on construction regulations, or any other health and safety matter, please contact David Edwards on 01772 258321.