CDM

Customer/Client

Clients, amongst other duty holders, are pivotal to ensuring the success the project as they have the most influence when it comes to financial control, final design decisions, and the amount of time allocated to safely undertake the construction activities. They are also responsible for appointing a competent professional team to support them with the works.

Client

A client is an organisation or individual having a construction project carried out in connection with a business.

The Construction Design Management (CDM) Regulations 2015 apply to both domestic and commercial clients. This guidance document is for commercial clients.

A client has a responsibility to make suitable arrangements for managing a project. This includes making sure that:

• Other duty holders are appointed
• Sufficient time and resources are allocated
• Relevant information is prepared and provided to other duty holders
• The principal designer and principal contractor carry out their duties
• Welfare facilities are provided

Domestic Client

You are a domestic client if you’re having building work carried out which is not connected to running a business, typically on the property where you or a family member lives.

You are included in these new regulations, but your duties as a client are normally transferred to:

• The contractor on a single contractor project or
• The principal contractor on a project involving more than one contractor

The domestic client can choose to have a written agreement with the principal designer to carry out the client duties.

Architect Designer
The term designer covers anyone who as part of a business, prepares or modify designs for a building, product or system relating to construction work. Designers, therefore, can vary from Architects, Structural Engineers, M&E consultants, even down to Quantity Surveyors and Project Managers.

Depending on the level of involvement you have on a project and amount of direct influence you have in the design, the client may appoint you as Principal Designer (PD) to undertake the PD duties in accordance with CDM 2015.

Principal Designer

The Principal Designer has overall control of the pre-construction phase of a project with regards to health & safety and should be appointed at the very earliest opportunity on the project, managing through from concept design through to planning the delivery of the construction works.

In liaison with other parties, the Principal Designer has an important role to play in influencing how the risks to health & safety should be managed and incorporated into the wider management of a project.

The Principal Designer’s work should focus on ensuring the design work in the pre-construction phase contributes to the delivery of positive health & safety outcomes, and by bringing together other duty holders to ensure everyone carries out their own duties to achieve this.

Designer

A designer, whilst may not be a principal designer, still has specific obligations under the legislation, to ensure their designs take into account the general principals of prevention and any pre-construction information to eliminate, so far as is reasonably practicable, foreseeable risks to the health or safety of any person either carrying out or liable to be affected by construction, maintaining or cleaning a structure, or using the structure designed as a workplace.

Designer, as per other duty holders must be able to demonstrate that they have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to fulfil the role in accordance with the regulations.

Project Manager/Contract Administrator

Under the regulations, project managers and/or contract administrators have no legal obligation under CDM2015 in their own right, unless they are performing other duties such as designer or principal designer functions, whereby in turn they will be responsible for the provision of those duties as well.

They may however assist the client with the facilitation of appointments of others. However, under CDM2015 they have no formal duties. Note: they will have other legal or duty of care responsibilities under their PM/CA roles which are outside the remit of the CDM Regulations.

Principal Designer

The Principal Designer has overall control of the pre-construction phase of a project with regards to health & safety and should be appointed at the very earliest opportunity on the project, managing through from concept design through to planning the delivery of the construction works.

In liaison with other parties, the Principal Designer has an important role to play in influencing how the risks to health & safety should be managed and incorporated into the wider management of a project.

The Principal Designer’s work should focus on ensuring the design work in the pre-construction phase contributes to the delivery of positive health & safety outcomes, and by bringing together other duty holders to ensure everyone carries out their own duties to achieve this.

Designer

A designer, whilst may not be a principal designer, still has specific obligations under the legislation, to ensure their designs take into account the general principals of prevention and any pre-construction information to eliminate, so far as is reasonably practicable, foreseeable risks to the health or safety of any person either carrying out or liable to be affected by construction, maintaining or cleaning a structure, or using the structure designed as a workplace.

Designer, as per other duty holders must be able to demonstrate that they have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to fulfil the role in accordance with the regulations.

Landlord/Property Owner

Landlords and or property owners usually, but not always, undertake the role of Client, as they are the person ultimately commissioning the instructions. They may, however, undertake other works such as specifications to certain elements of the works, or confirming specific methodology or work sequencing of the project.

Client

The client is the person at the top of the project tree, ultimately with overall responsibility for the project. They are the person or organisation for whom a construction project is carried out.

Clients can be either commercial or domestic, with both having specific duties under the regulations.

The client has a major influence over the way a project is procured and managed. Regardless of the size of the project, the client had contractual control, appoints the designers and contractors, and determines the money, time and other resources available.

Under the regulations, should a commercial client fail to appoint in writing other duty holders then by default they are legally responsible for the execution of those obligations and duties. It is therefore imperative that unless the client is willing to do so, they make those other appointments as soon as practical in the process.

Principal Designer

The Principal Designer has overall control of the pre-construction phase of a project with regards to health & safety and should be appointed at the very earliest opportunity on the project, managing through from concept design through to planning the delivery of the construction works.

In liaison with other parties, the Principal Designer has an important role to play in influencing how the risks to health & safety should be managed and incorporated into the wider management of a project.

The Principal Designer’s work should focus on ensuring the design work in the pre-construction phase contributes to the delivery of positive health & safety outcomes, and by bringing together other duty holders to ensure everyone carries out their own duties to achieve this.

Designer

A designer, whilst may not be a principal designer, still has specific obligations under the legislation, to ensure their designs take into account the general principals of prevention and any pre-construction information to eliminate, so far as is reasonably practicable, foreseeable risks to the health or safety of any person either carrying out or liable to be affected by construction, maintaining or cleaning a structure, or using the structure designed as a workplace.

Designer, as per other duty holders must be able to demonstrate that they have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to fulfil the role in accordance with the regulations.

Principal Contractor

A principal contractor is the organisation or person that coordinates the work of the construction phase of a project involving more than one contractor, so it is carried out in a way that secures health and safety. They are appointed by the client and must possess the skills, knowledge, and experience, and (if an organisation) the organisational capability to carry out their role effectively given the scale and complexity of the project and the nature of the health and safety risks involved.

Good management of health and safety on site is crucial to the successful delivery of a construction project. In liaison with the client and principal designer, principal contractors have an important role in managing the risks of the construction work and providing strong leadership to ensure standards are understood and followed.

The Principal Contractor is responsible for all things H&S related at site level, and must carefully liaise with the client, professional team and principal designer where appointed at all times during the process, to offer guidance and coordination on construction H&S matters. An example of this may be offering guidance on a construction method or technique or offering specialist advice on high-risk construction activity.

Contractor/Builder

A contractor may be an individual, a sole trader, a self-employed worker or a business who carries out, manages or controls construction work in connection with a business. Anyone who directly engages construction workers or manages construction work is a contractor. This includes companies that use their own workforce to do construction work on their own premises.

The main duty of a contractor is to plan and manage construction work under their control so that it is carried out in a way that controls risks to health and safety.

They have a range of other duties that depend on whether more than one contractor is involved in the project. If so, their duties entail co-ordinating their activities with others involved in the project team – in particular, complying with directions given to them by the principal designer or principal contractor.

If there is only one contractor for the work, they have responsibilities to prepare a construction phase plan and prevent unauthorised access to the site. Where contractors are involved in design work, including for temporary works, they will carry out duties as designers.