CDM stands for Construction (Design and Management). The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 are the rules that decide who is responsible for what on a construction project in Great Britain, and their most misunderstood feature is that they apply to every project, however small and whether or not it is domestic. What changes with size is not whether the regulations apply but which duties bite and whether the job has to be notified.
What the letters stand for and why they matter
Design and Management is the point. Earlier construction safety law aimed at the site; CDM aims at the decisions made before anyone arrives on it, because that is where most of the risk is created. A designer who specifies a detail that can only be built by working unprotected at height has made a safety decision, and the regulations say so in as many words.
The duty holders
The client, who has to make suitable arrangements for managing the project. The principal designer, who plans, manages and monitors the pre-construction phase. The principal contractor, who does the same for the construction phase. Designers and contractors, each with duties of their own. Both principal roles are only appointed where more than one contractor is involved, which is the threshold that catches people out.
When a project has to be notified
Regulation 6 makes a project notifiable if the construction work is scheduled to last longer than 30 working days and have more than 20 workers working simultaneously at any point, or to exceed 500 person days. Notification is form F10 to HSE, and it is the client's duty. Notifiable and non-notifiable is not the same distinction as CDM applies or does not: the regulations apply either way.
The domestic client
On a domestic project the client duties normally pass to the contractor, or to the principal contractor where there is more than one, or to the principal designer if there is a written agreement. Householders do not usually realise they were a client at all, which is why the transfer exists. It does not make the duties disappear; it moves them to somebody who does this for a living.
The principles of prevention
CDM requires duty holders to take account of the general principles of prevention, which come from Schedule 1 to the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999: avoid risks, evaluate what cannot be avoided, combat at source, adapt work to the individual, adapt to technical progress, replace the dangerous with the less dangerous, develop a coherent policy, prioritise collective over individual protection, and instruct workers. They are a hierarchy, and reaching for personal protective equipment first is the usual way of ignoring it.
Questions people ask about cdm
What does CDM stand for?
Construction (Design and Management). The current regulations are the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015.
When do the CDM regulations apply?
To all construction work in Great Britain. There is no minimum size. What changes with the project is whether principal duty holders must be appointed and whether the project has to be notified to HSE.
What makes a project notifiable?
Under regulation 6, work scheduled to last longer than 30 working days with more than 20 workers on site simultaneously at any point, or work scheduled to exceed 500 person days.
What are the client's duties under CDM?
Making suitable arrangements for managing the project, providing pre-construction information, appointing the principal designer and principal contractor in writing where more than one contractor is involved, and satisfying themselves that those arrangements are being maintained.