Principal Designer role

[divorcingjack]

Can I ask who everyone is using as their Principal Designer for their project under CDM 2015? As we are using MBC and sub-trades for our build, the Principal Contractor role comes to us, but it's my understanding that normally an architect fulfils the PD role. I've already asked MBC, and they won't do it, as obviously they don't have control over the rest of the build when they're not on site. Our SE all doesn't provide this service. 

 

@Sensus, I'm sure that I've seen you mention using an independent company/individual for this role - could you share some details? 

 

Am I correct in my interpretation of the CDM 2015 HSE rules that a self builder is classified as a "domestic client", and therefore has the responsibility of appointing a PC and PD for the project? If not, does the project have to have a PD at all?

 

Thanks, 

dj

 

 

[lizzie]

Interested to hear more on this have just the same issue going on and the quotes for hse professional to do the package for proj man to implement would buy a bathroom!

[divorcingjack]

Depends how nice a bathroom you'd like! 

[TheMitchells]

Coincidentally, I was listening to Ben Adam Smiths podcast this morning and its on that subject, as well as other things so may be worth a listen.  Its certainly something I'd like to know more about. 

http://www.houseplanninghelp.com/hph164-taking-on-the-role-of-principal-designer-with-belinda-and-paul-wilson/

 

 

[lizzie]

4 hours ago, divorcingjack said:

Depends how nice a bathroom you'd like! 

ha ha I like a nice one!

[Vijay]

When I spoke to my local HSE office, they told me if the plans were already approved by planning, I was past the point of needing a PD and to put my name down as the role

[Ian]

@divorcingjack

 

The HSE guidance on this is very clear. Link here: http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/cdm/2015/domestic-clients.htm

 

I've cut & pasted the official guidance below but basically what it says is that if you are a domestic client (see definition below) then your client duties get automatically passed onto the contractor.

Domestic clients: roles and responsibilities

Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015)

CDM 2015 makes a distinction between domestic clients and commercial clients, who commission construction work as part of their business.

A domestic client is any individual who has construction work carried out on their home, or the home of a family member, that is not done as part of any business. While CDM 2015 places client duties on commercial clients in full, such duties for domestic clients normally pass to:

• the contractor, if it is a single contractor project, who must take on the legal duties of the client in addition to their own as contractor. In practice, this should involve little more than what they normally do in managing health and safety risks
• the principal contractor, for projects with more than one contractor, who must take on the legal duties of the client in addition to their own as principal contractor. If the domestic client has not appointed a principal contractor, the client duties must be carried out by the contractor in control of the construction work

If a domestic client has appointed an architect (or other designer) on a project involving more than one contractor, they can ask them to manage the project and take on the client duties instead of the principal contractor. The designer then takes on the responsibilities of principal designer and must have a written agreement with the domestic client, confirming they have agreed (as principal designer) to take on the client duties as well as their own responsibilities. 

Any designer in charge of coordinating and managing a project is assumed to be the principal designer. However, if they do not have a written agreement with the domestic client to confirm they are taking on the client duties, those duties automatically pass to the principal contractor.

[mvincentd]

I paid £525.00 for an independent to act as Principal Designer, including an initial site inspection and design meeting, prepare Pre-Construction Information and Health and Safety File at completion of the project.  The same person also will give (for additional fee) assistance with the Construction Phase of the project, advise the Principal Contractor and help prepare the Construction Phase Health and Safety Plan.  As I am being the main contractor and in reality have no credible prior construction experience I have taken the option of their preparing the Construction Phase Plan...add a £395 fee.  Their involvement has heightened my awareness that I still won't be in compliance without  passing EFAW (emergency first aid at work) and SMSTS (site managers safety training).....so allow 6 days of your time and about £750 for that lot.  If you use a great little local builder with 50 years experience of doing it right but not knowing how to leave a paper trail, you might have to also ask this independent to help him produce method statements and risk assessments too.

[divorcingjack]

Thanks for the replies all, much appreciated. 

 

@Vijay my local HSE office were VERY clear that they do not give any advice AT ALL to anyone, so that was that for me! I really want something in writing tbh. 

 

@Ian I've read that guidance over and over. The complexity for us comes because we are using multiple contractors but no main contractor, so we are taking on that role ourselves. So, as a domestic client, we basically appoint ourselves to carry out our own duties. That part is fine, and I understand it and the responsibilities that go with it. 

 

We have an architect, but he is not keen on taking on the PD role, and it is not that clear (to me anyway) whether we HAVE to appoint a PD. It looks to me that if we don't, that role also comes to us (as PC), but we do not have the skills and experience to meet the responsibilities. So, are they saying that self builders managing their own projects MUST have a PD appointed? 

 

@mvincentd - that sounds great, We have had a quote which was considerably higher than that one, so if you wouldn't mind sharing details of that independent, I would appreciate it. We have some experience in preparing risk assessments and dealing with H&S between us, and have a first aid qualification, but thank you for those course recommendations. 

 

Cheers, 

dj

[mvincentd]

I used Amanda at Certaservices in Bournemouth on 07773 817258.  She's a former building surveyor and understands the application of the role, whereas pure H&S specialists who were not in construction struggled to interpret the CDM regulations.... and even argued that there was no way an inexperienced self builder like me could fulfil the PC role (but that's another story).

 

It's apparently common an architect won't want the role of PD.....so you get an independent....someone who understands both construction design and h&s legislation....they sit in on main design meetings and are kept up to date on design development so that they can wade in with questions like "thats nice but how will you fit a workman in that space and keep him safe while he's building it?"  The PD will produce a folder of pre-construction information that passes onto the PC so that h&s considerations first spotted during design are fed forward.  If there are differences in what gets built to what was designed, the PC must ensure the folder is updated.  So the PD pretty much hands over and quits once construction starts.  If your house is already 'designed' and passed by planning, that won't negate the necessity for a PD.

[B52s]

If I may stick my head in here...

 

It would appear that some people are losing sight of the complex and challenging statutory obligations of CDM2015.  Prices on this forum for delivering PD services appear to range from an in-vogue bathroom to an outside loo complete with rickety wooden shed and slop-out pale!

 

The professional indemnity (PI) of many small architectural practices doesn't cover the provision of PD services (they don't have the necessary skill set).  Furthermore, the majority CDM coordinators who delivered a similar service under the previous CDM2007 are also unable to obtain PI cover (they also don't have the necessary skill set).

 

So if you are being offered PD services for the price of an outside loo, my strong suspicion would be that the project will not be delivered in accordance with the onerous statutory obligations of CDM2015.

 

The litmus test; ask those who are offering PD services for a copy of their PI certificate.

 

I trust you find my thoughts to be helpful.

 

[Tennentslager]

21 minutes ago, B52s said:

If I may stick my head in here...

 

It would appear that some people are losing sight of the complex and challenging statutory obligations of CDM2015.  Prices on this forum for delivering PD services appear to range from an in-vogue bathroom to an outside loo complete with rickety wooden shed and slop-out pale!

 

The professional indemnity (PI) of many small architectural practices doesn't cover the provision of PD services (they don't have the necessary skill set).  Furthermore, the majority CDM coordinators who delivered a similar service under the previous CDM2007 are also unable to obtain PI cover (they also don't have the necessary skill set).

 

So if you are being offered PD services for the price of an outside loo, my strong suspicion would be that the project will not be delivered in accordance with the onerous statutory obligations of CDM2015.

 

The litmus test; ask those who are offering PD services for a copy of their PI certificate.

 

I trust you find my thoughts to be helpful.

 

That's a great first post and I'm sure will be helpful. 

Is there a rough rule of thumb for what you should expect to pay? For instance, standard timber frame, 250m....3/4/5% of build cost?

[Jeremy Harris]

In practical terms, for the average self-builder who's employing contractors, what's really changed?  There's some fancy bullshit, invented to create jobs for yet more consultants, but the reality seems to be that none of the responsibilities have changed at all, they've just added some fancy titles to things that have always needed to have been done (from a purely self-build perspective).

 

Self-builders get hit by people trying to fleece them for everything from ecological and environmental studies, through archaeological and flood risk assessments, not to mention having to pay to have someone file in a damned energy assessment.  Now it seems as if yet another scheme has been dreamt up to relieve self-builders of funds............

 

Having read this lot of bumf from cover to cover, I really don't think anything has fundamentally changed.  As a self-builder, your actual responsibilities remain as they have always been, in that you're responsible for ensuring that your site is secure, that appropriate HS&E signage is in place, that your contractors are briefed as to where responsibilities lie and that you have insurance to cover the risks you don't feel comfortable with taking.  You should also check your contractors insurance - all ours happily provided me with copies.

 

For our build, I wrote into the contract for our ground works contractor that they had complete responsibility for the site for the duration of the contract.  This included site security as well as the HS&E stuff.  On completion of the ground works I took back responsibility for the site, put in place insurance and placed a contract for the foundation and house shell construction.  Again, the contract was clear, in that the contractor had responsibility for HS&E, but in this case I retained responsibility for site security, signage etc (only because by then the site could be made secure safely by hand).   For all the fitting out works each and every contractor was responsible for their own HS&E. 

 

I firmly believe that for the majority of self-builds, CDM2015 has no impact, unless we're daft enough to get scared into paying someone to do something we can do ourselves with no more effort than has always been the case.  Self-builders are almost always going to be "domestic clients", in CDM-speak, which means that the responsibility falls where it's always been in these circumstances, the contractor.

Edited April 13, 2017 by JSHarris

[Barney12]

5 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

I firmly believe that for the majority of self-builds, CDM2015 has no impact, unless we're daft enough to get scared into paying someone to do something we can do ourselves with no more effort than has always been the case.  Self-builders are almost always going to be "domestic clients", in CDM-speak, which means that the responsibility falls where it's always been in these circumstances, the contractor.

 

Exactly my understanding!

 

Where dos this paranoia over CDM2015 originate? Is it a clause in Self Build Insurance Policies somewhere? Or is it people reading and self interpreting the guidance?

[Jeremy Harris]

I think it's the damned "experts" trying to create a market for their new-found "services", together with some pretty poor reporting, that doesn't view things from a self-build perspective at all.  I got so bloody-minded about all the people with their hands out for a slice of our build budget that I very deliberately chose to do everything myself, from designing the house, through gaining planning permission, doing the flood risk assessment, fending off the unwarranted requests for ecology and environmental studies, through to doing the energy assessment.  I got caught out by the latter, as I did all the work, only to find that the damned government have created a monopoly, where only registered assessors can file the report.  I ended up paying an assessor, not to do an assessment, but just to file my paperwork - barking mad and extremely annoying!

[B52s]

37 minutes ago, Barney12 said:

 

Exactly my understanding!

 

Where dos this paranoia over CDM2015 originate? Is it a clause in Self Build Insurance Policies somewhere? Or is it people reading and self interpreting the guidance?

 

Guys, please don't stick your proverbial head in the sand.

 

Domestic builds were previously outwith the scope of CDM2007.  As from April 2015, the UK government passed an amendment to the CDM Regulations making them applicable to domestic properties.  And why; two reasons: This brings the UK construction industry health and safety law and practices in line with other EU countries.  The second, and I personally feel more important and of real concern; the HSE advise that approx. 80% of all construction accidents relate to small building projects.  Everyone working on domestic projects (domestic clients, designers and contractors) now has statutory obligation place on them by the HSE to reverse this dreadful trend.

 

Those who make no meaningful attempt to comply with CDM2015 face the real prospect of a custodial sentence (under new sentencing guidelines) in the event of a fatal accident on a domestic construction site.  It is worth noting that the HSE track-back all accidents to identify the true underlying cause of an accident.  And why? ...because it is widely accepted in health & safety circles that most accidents relate to poor construction design and management.

 

As they say; "don't shoot the messenger".

Edited April 13, 2017 by B52s
typo

[Jeremy Harris]

OK, I'll bite.  What part of the "domestic client" bit have I, supposedly, misunderstood?

 

I've read and re-read it, and it seems blindingly clear to me that self-builders are "domestic clients", and as such the contractors we contract with take responsibility for their own HS&E, and we are, as we've always been, are just clients. 

[B52s]

The HSE have made it absolutely clear that they have no intention of pursuing domestic clients because it is accepted that most domestic clients do not have the technical skills knowledge or experience to undertake CDM duties.  This being the default position for all domestic clients.

 

To maintain the default position, domestic clients should not appoint a principal designer or a principal contractor, otherwise the domestic client takes on CDM duties that he/she is not obligated to do under CDM2015.

 

So the simple advice should be; do nothing - and as you correctly say, the CDM duties will automatically fall on others by default (as defined in CDM2015).

 

Hope that make sense.

Edited April 13, 2017 by B52s
typo

[Jeremy Harris]

Thanks, it's exactly as I thought, then.  So, self-builders should carry on as they've always done, follow the "domestic client" rules, as described above in this post: 

On 11/04/2017 at 10:36, Ian said:

Domestic clients: roles and responsibilities

Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015)

CDM 2015 makes a distinction between domestic clients and commercial clients, who commission construction work as part of their business.

A domestic client is any individual who has construction work carried out on their home, or the home of a family member, that is not done as part of any business. While CDM 2015 places client duties on commercial clients in full, such duties for domestic clients normally pass to:

• the contractor, if it is a single contractor project, who must take on the legal duties of the client in addition to their own as contractor. In practice, this should involve little more than what they normally do in managing health and safety risks
• the principal contractor, for projects with more than one contractor, who must take on the legal duties of the client in addition to their own as principal contractor. If the domestic client has not appointed a principal contractor, the client duties must be carried out by the contractor in control of the construction work

If a domestic client has appointed an architect (or other designer) on a project involving more than one contractor, they can ask them to manage the project and take on the client duties instead of the principal contractor. The designer then takes on the responsibilities of principal designer and must have a written agreement with the domestic client, confirming they have agreed (as principal designer) to take on the client duties as well as their own responsibilities. 

Any designer in charge of coordinating and managing a project is assumed to be the principal designer. However, if they do not have a written agreement with the domestic client to confirm they are taking on the client duties, those duties automatically pass to the principal contractor.

 

Flap over, no need for self-builders to shell out yet more cash, we carry on exactly as we have before this came along......................

[PeterW]

So the question is ....

 

You employ a brickie, a joiner and a roofer. None of them are on site together so none can be classed as "Principle Contractor".

 

Do you end up with 3 "contractor" arrangements..? 

 

I do love the last line in the guidance as this is exaclty how issues occur 

 

Any designer in charge of coordinating and managing a project is assumed to be the principal designer. However, if they do not have a written agreement with the domestic client to confirm they are taking on the client duties, those duties automatically pass to the principal contractor.

 

So basically HSE and GovUK have shafted principal contractors as they have no escape ..! If what @B52s says is correct, and architects etc don't carry the PI then by the architect NOT doing something (i.e. Not confirming they are taking the PD role) then the principal contractor is shafted by default ..!! 

 

I wonder how many principal contractors are unwittingly doing that as the architect/designer hasn't made that clear ..???!

[Jeremy Harris]

But this is exactly how HS&E law applied before this, all CDM2015 has done is spell out something for domestic clients that has always applied.  The facts are that this very, very rarely ever becomes a real issue for self-builders.

 

What's extremely annoying is that unwitting self-builders seem to be getting fleeced by people who have set up businesses to make money from the change in legislation, and that annoys me a great deal.

 

Edited April 13, 2017 by JSHarris

[PeterW]

5 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

But this is exactly how HS&E law applied before this, all CDM2015 has done is spell out something for domestic clients that has always applied.  The facts are that this very, very rarely ever becomes a real issue for self-builders.

 

 

Its bizarre though that you can take responsibility for something unknowingly by someone else's lack of action ..! 

 

Although if I ever become PD on anything I'll remember to neatly side step that responsibility ...

[Jeremy Harris]

Nothing has changed in terms of HS&E law, or the way it is applied in the event of an accident.  Someone doing work, such that they are, in law, a competent person, has always carried the additional duty of care when it comes to responsibility for HS&E.  The law doesn't make someone responsible for the actions of another, over which they have no control.  All that CDM has done, as far as domestic clients/self-builders are concerned is to create confusion, in my humble opinion, as it was intended to clarify responsibilities in commercial projects.  There have been cases in commercial projects where finding the responsible person (in HS&E terms) has been difficult, because of the somewhat lax way that many sub-contractors have been employed in the past.

 

For years now I've done occasional work as an expert witness, 99% of it being on behalf of insurers, usually because they are seeking to find a way to reduce their liability following an accident.  I've never, ever, seen a case where someone who doesn't have control over an activity has been found liable.  I've often seen cases where people have tried to claim they didn't have responsibility, whereas in reality they did.

 

As far as self-builders are concerned, then they, as domestic clients in CDM-speak, cannot be expected to have the expertise to manage contractors, in terms of taking responsibility for their actions. 

 

[B52s]

PeterW

Yeah I would agree, but only if you are undertaking all of the construction work yourself (normally described as DIY).  However, there is still fly in the ointment for self-builders if they engage tradesmen to undertake some of the work (e.g. electrician, plumber, etc).  This being the case would (under CDM) define the self-builder as the principal contractor which means the self-builder would attract all the Principal Contractor CDM duties as noted under CDM2015.

 

Also, bear in mind that the self-builder could also unwittingly (by default) become the principal designer if the role is vacant.  Basically, if the self-builder undertakes any design tasks (even minor design tweaks) himself, then he/she could by defined as the designer in control of the pre-construction phase (even if this is during construction on site).

Edited April 13, 2017 by B52s
typo

[Jeremy Harris]

That's not the case, as stated clearly in the excerpt already quoted.  If I contract with someone to undertake a part of our build, then they are, in law, the "responsible person".  They have the expertise and understanding that makes them a competent person in terms of their duty of care to their client.  A domestic client, can not, and is not, expected to have expertise in any particular trade, let alone all of them.  A case against a domestic client would never get as far as court.

Edited April 13, 2017 by JSHarris