The role of the Principal Designer as defined in the Construction Design and management Regulations (CDM) 2015.
In this blog we are going to look at the duties and responsibilities of the Principal Designer under the Construction Design and Management regulations (CDM) 2015
Introduction
Duties of the Principal Designer under the CDM Regulations
Additional Responsibilities
Summary checklist of the Principal Designers duties
Project setup
Summary
Introduction
Principal Designer
A principal designer is the designer with control over the pre-construction phase of the project. They are appointed by the client and their role is to plan, manage and monitor the co-ordination of the pre-construction phase, including any preparatory work carried out for the project.
This includes identifying and eliminating or controlling foreseeable risks though design risk management.
When carrying out DRM the focus should be on significant risks over which the duty holder can exercise some control or take measures to mitigate. The objective with regards to the risks identified during the design process is to maximise the opportunity to eliminate or, if not feasible, reduce the risks during the whole life cycle:
Including: Construction, Commissioning, Building use, Maintenance, Repair, Decommissioning and Demolition of a structure
Duties of the Principal Designer under the CDM Regulations
Their duties as the principal designer apply regardless of the contractual arrangements for the appointment of other designers on the project. If a principal designer appoints other designers, the principal designer is responsible for:
Ensuring that designers have the relevant skills, knowledge, training and experience to deliver their work.
Principal designers must:
Assist the client in identifying, obtaining and collating the pre-construction information.
Provide pre-construction information to designers, principal contractor and contractors.
Ensure that designers comply with their duties and co-operate with each other.
Liaise with the principal contractor for the duration of their appointment.
Prepare the health and safety file.
And are responsible for:
Planning, managing, monitoring and coordinating the pre-construction phase.
Identifying, eliminating or controlling foreseeable risks.
Ensuring coordination and cooperation.
Providing pre-construction information.
Liaising with the principal contractor.
Working with domestic clients.
A principal designer’s role when working on a project for a domestic client is no different to the role undertaken for a commercial client.
Clearly identify significant risks on drawings or provide a significant risk register.
Requesting the PC’s construction phase plan prior to construction commencing.
Retrieving any existing health and safety file to extract any relevant information.
Liaise with the principal contractor to help in the planning, management, monitoring and coordination of the construction phase.
Additional Responsibilities:
Receiving information about design changes and communicating information and design changes to other duty holders.
Preparing the health and safety file.
Developing the pre-construction information.
Providing information to the principal contractor.
Help with the client brief.
Implementing the Principles of Prevention during design and design risk management.
Summary checklist of the Principal Designers duties as defined in the CDM regulations 2015:
General:
Assist the client in identifying, obtaining and collating the pre-construction Information?
Ensure that designers comply with their duties and co-operate with each other.
Have sufficient resources been allocated to the project.
Make the client aware of their duty to allow sufficient resources.
Liaise with the principal contractor for the duration of the appointment.
Are the Principal Contractor and Principal Designer able to carry out their duties.
Make arrangements to prepare the health and safety file and assure the client that the health and safety file will be completed at handover?
Make sure the client knows it is the clients duty to ensure welfare facilities been provided. Duty to ensure/ Duty to provide.
Assisting the client with the deign brief:
Has the PD assessed the Clients level of knowledge and experience for the proposed project?
Has the PD produced a proposal for the client that outlines the scope of the PD role and how the PD role will be fulfilled?
Has the appointment of PD been obtained in writing? Including timescales, resources required and scope of services.
Has the client explained the design direction they have in mind?
Has the client asked the PD to help the client with the design brief?
Has the client set a realistic timeframe and budget.
A clear brief is essential to the success of your project. It sets out key requirements, outlines the vision of the project.
Help with the Client Brief:
The client is required to identify and obtain information for the pre-construction phase. The Principal Designer must assist the client in doing this before information is collated and passed on to the designers.
This information will also need to be passed to the principal contractor before construction begins.
Pre Construction information:
Is the information reliable?
Where has it come from?
How old is it?
Could it have been superseded by subsequent works?
Is there any information missing (such as asbestos records)?
Would a site visit help to confirm the accuracy of the information (such as location of manhole covers)?
Are further surveys or investigations required?
The information from the client could include any previous health and safety file, site services, drawings, asbestos information, ground conditions and other relevant surveys as well as site arrangements and restrictions. Additional information could be obtained from the client’s maintenance and operational staff.
This information needs to be reviewed as early as possible to identify any potential impacts on health and safety. Where you identify any shortfalls, you will need to advise the client on how to address them.
Pre-Construction information must be reviewed as early as possible to identify any potential impacts on health and safety.
Where you identify any shortfalls, the principal designer will need to advise the client on how to address them.
The Principal Designers responsibilities during the pre-construction phase:
Ensure cooperation with and between all of the designers involved in the project.
Oversee the design and ensure that all designers comply with their duties.
Ensure designers give you regular updates, including information about issues or design changes that could potentially impact on health and safety.
Ensure designers provided information about significant risks that are unusual, not obvious, or difficult to manage.
Undertake a review of the health and safety information provided by other designers.
Focused attention on areas where there is a high risk to health and safety, including changes made to the original design.
The PD must compile and review the pre-construction information to check that the information provided is appropriate for supporting the construction phase.
It should be specific to the project, highlight any significant health and safety issues and not include information that a principal contractor familiar with this type of work would be expected to know.
The Principal Designers responsibilities during the construction phase:
Confirm how they will communicate with the principal contractor, including how you will communicate with contractors when they are responsible for aspects of the design or have questions about the design.
Ensure all preconstruction information been provided to the principal contractor and is it relevant and reliable.
The principal contractor may have questions or queries and may identify ambiguous or missing information. As the principal designer you must respond, either directly or by obtaining further information from the client or the designers.
The principal contractor needs to provide information about any potential issues or proposed changes to the design.
The principal designer must understand acknowledge the impact that this could have on health and safety during construction, maintenance, cleaning and, where relevant, its use as a workplace.
Where necessary, you should discuss this with the designers and the client.
Prepare and develop the health and safety file:
It is the responsibility of the PD to prepare and develop the health and safety file, including the information required for cleaning, maintenance, alteration or demolition of the building. You will need to provide the principal contractor with details of the agreed format, structure and required content.
Has the principal contractor provided the construction information? This should include any changes to the original design along with the as-built drawings.
Summary of Project setup:
Provide a schedule on appointment and develop a good relationship with the client.
Ensure you understand the brief and clarify roles.
Hold regular meetings.
Undertake an early site visit.
Use building information modelling (BIM)
Arrange a pre-design meeting with the client and the designers.
Where possible, seek contractor input during the design phase.
Participate in design co-ordination meetings across all disciplines.
Actively encourage designers to work together as a team.
Encourage the designers to involve end users from the early stages of the design.
Embed health and safety into everything.
Encourage a consistent approach to how information is provided by the designers.
Prepare content for the health and safety file early.
Attend site or progress meetings.
Identify lessons learned.
Summary
The duty of the principal Designer is extensive, but it need not be complex.
Yorkshire Health and Safety can assist you in the successful delivery of all your projects from concept to completion.
At Yorkshire Health and Safety, we build strong relationships with clients based on communication, collaboration, commitment, trust and aligning with your key safety performance goals.
With over 30 years’ experience delivering successful projects for clients and working with clients’ principal contractors, we know the challenges that come with delivering successful projects, be it commercial, industrial, construction manufacturing, housebuilding, refurbishment, shopfitting and office interiors.
If you require further assistance with any of the topics raised in this post or assistance with CDM on your current or future projects, please get in touch.
Yorkshire Health and Safety
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