HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT YOUR PRINCIPAL DESIGNER OR CDM CONSULTANTS CAN DO THE JOB?
Third party consultants such as Bernard Sims Associates (BSA) are specialists in ensuring that health and safety is designed into construction and maintenance projects from the start and are regarded as the guardians of health and safety. But, how does a prospective Client ensure that their Principal Designer is competent?
The CDM Regs or Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 applies to (nearly) all projects and the two most important duties of a Client are:
1) A Client must make suitable arrangements for
managing a project, including the allocation of sufficient time and other
resources.
2) A person who is responsible [mostly the Client] for
appointing a designer or contractor to carry out work on a project must
take reasonable steps to satisfy themselves that the designer
or contractor fulfills the conditions in paragraph (1).
‘Paragraph (1)’ under ‘General Duties’ requires
‘A designer (including a principal designer [or PD]) or contractor (including a principal contractor) appointed to work on a project must have the skills, knowledge and experience, and, if they are an organisation, the organisational capability, [i.e. ‘competence’] necessary to fulfill the role that they are appointed to undertake, in a manner that secures the health and safety of any person affected by the project.’
…and for the record, Paragraph 2) requires
‘A designer or contractor must not accept an appointment to a project unless they fulfill the conditions in paragraph (1).’
Appointment of the PD under CDM
The CDM appointment
of Principal Designer is required for most projects under the CDM 2015
Regs. If not specifically appointed in writing, in most cases, the duties and
responsibilities fall on the Client.
So how does a Client know at the start of a project who has the appropriate Skills, Knowledge, Experience and Organisational Ability i.e. is he or she competent?
Larger Clients with extensive programmes of construction, refurbishment and maintenance may well directly employ people competent to assess the competency of potential Principal Designers, Designers and Architects (including Structural, M&E and other specialists), Contractors and Sub Contractors.
Other Clients need to gather information about competency themselves or consult with one of the many pre-qualification bodies.
Pre-qualification schemes?
Many people are aware of pre-qualification accreditation or safety organisations such as Safe Contractor, Association of Project Safety (APS), CHAS or SMAS or more specific bodies such as the National Association of Shopfitters. These compile evidence and ask appropriate questions to assess the health and safety competency of an organisation. This removes the burden and cost of these assessments and injects a great deal of skill and a standardised approach.
Many of the questions are similar in the different schemes and supported by the HSE, Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP) aims to support standards, streamline prequalification and encourage straightforward mutual recognition between its member schemes.
What specific questions does a Principal Designer answer to
demonstrate competence?
There are questions asked of all prospective pre-qualification scheme members
about health and safety documentation, insurance and many other areas. However,
to demonstrate competence in a specific area such as CDM, there are particular
sorts of questions:
Staff: Specific H&S competency demonstrated by technical backgrounds including formal qualifications in health & safety, experience and memberships of professional bodies based on assessment.
In assessment of ‘experience’ it is important to emphasise that it must be from a health and safety perspective. for example, BSA carries out hundreds of jobs with a focus on H&S every year which means that the accumulation of experience is vast.
Corporate standards via systems and processes:
•For compiling and assessing pre-construction information and how it’s distributed to relevant parties.
•For assessing the sufficiency of the Construction Stage Plan put forward by the Contractor.
•For feeding back and resolving issues during the design phase.
•For compiling and editing the Health and Safety file of residual risks (for operation, use and future maintenance or construction projects) at the project end.
•For checking quality of work, post review of projects and feedback of learning for future projects.
For example, BSA is focused on health and safety and CDM processes so is able to apply dedicated staff and expertise to fine tuning these processes to ensure best practice and the highest standards. As a consequence, BSA can answer these questions in detail.
So how would you know that BSA is the one to appoint?
BSA is recognised and accredited by SMAS, CHAS, APS and SafeContractor
as competent to deliver health and safety services including CDM roles such as
Principal Designer.
In addition, where an Architect or other non specialist has already been appointed as PD, BSA can supplement the required competence with services such as ‘PD Assist’. This can greatly assist either Clients or Designers in carrying out their onerous responsibilities as PD.
Of course, this expertise extends to Contractors – BSA is able to advise what needs to be done to develop construction phase plans. BSA can help Contractors demonstrate competence and can assist in making them ready for their own pre-qualification assessment.
For more information about assessing the competency of your CDM consultants, Designers or other parties, just phone BSA on 01483 467270 for a no-obligation chat.