The Health and Safety Executive has announced that the revised CDM regulations will now come into force in April 2007, a year later than planned. But Stephen Williams, chief inspector of construction at HSE, has now cast some doubt on that date.

Speaking at the Association of Project Safety’s annual gathering last month, Williams said: “I sincerely hope it will be April. Nothing in life is certain. The only reason [it might not be] is the tax changes.” He was referring to the change in the CIS scheme which also comes into play next April. There have been complaints that SMEs in particular will struggle to cope with a double-whammy of regulation changes.

The new regulations and Associated Code of Practice have yet to be rubber-stamped, but the changes are expected to be as follows:

  • A shift in focus away from paperwork to planning and management.
  • The planning supervisor’s role, seen as a “toothless tiger”, has gone. Enter the planning co-ordinator, who will be appointed earlier in the process by the client.
  • Exemption rules for small projects have been simplified: less than 30 days (or 500 man days) and you don’t have to produce a safety plan (currently it is 30 days [or 500 man days] and less than five people).
  • The principal contractor’s duties have been clarified. One point to note is that the principal contractor will have responsibility for seeing that training, to enable people to do their job safely, is carried out.

Source

Construction Manager