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Posts with the 'Regulations' tag
Regulation Updates
Update 1: From 6 April 2010, if you are responsible for ensuring that conventional tower cranes used on construction sites are thoroughly examined, you must give the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) certain information about these cranes. Businesses responsible for ensuring that conventional tower cranes used on construction sites are thoroughly examined by a competent person must give the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) information about such cranes. Click to read more about this Tower Crane regulation update.
Update 2: Building Regulations - Construction businesses will have to comply with changes to the Building Regulations 2000. These will introduce for new buildings:
- a minimum water efficiency requirement
- a maximum temperature requirement for bath water
The rules will also be strengthened and clarified on:
- the safety of hot water systems
- the supply of water of suitable quality for personal and food hygiene
Update 3: From 6 April 2010, Street works supervisors and operatives - Supervisors and trained operatives will have to be reassessed every five years before they can re-register on the Street Works Qualification Register and continue to carry out street works. Click to read more about this Street Works regulation update.
Source: Business Link
Construction (Design and Management) Regulations
The new CDM regulations come into effect in April. They are "the most radical change to construction health and safety legislation since 1994, the year when the existing CDM regulations came into effect," according to John Malins, associate at law firm Davies Arnold Cooper.
The new regs make those with the greatest control and influence over a project, namely the project team, responsible for health and safety. They also introduce a new role of co-ordinator in place of the planning supervisor who will be appointed by the client. "The co-ordinator will be required to 'identify and extract' all information required to secure the health and safety of anyone engaged in construction work," says Malins.
The other big change is that ultimate responsibility - and consequently, liability for health and safety - rests with the client for all construction projects. While the client can delegate the duties under the regulations, for example to the co-ordinator, it nonetheless retains liability for complying with the regulations.
"Contractors, employers and designers would be wise to review their obligations now," warns Malins. "Any projects straddling the April 2007 effective date will be subject to the new regulations, which apply to all construction projects lasting more than 30 days or involving more than 500 person days of construction work."
Source: Contract Journal, Issue 204
Health and Safety Commission go-ahead for revision of CDM & CHSW
I thought that you would like to know that HSC have agreed that we should proceed with the revision of the CDM and CHSW regs. The ambitious aim is to publish a consultative document next Spring. As far as possible I want to move forward by consensus, involving as many interested parties as possible.
The high level objectives for the revision, agreed with CONIAC and endorsed by HSC, are to improve the management of risk by:
- simplifying the regulations to improve clarity and so making it easier for dutyholders to know what is expected of them;
- maximising their flexibility to fit with the vast range of contractual arrangements;
- making their focus planning and management, rather than the plan and other paperwork, to emphasise active management and minimise bureaucracy;
- strengthening the requirements regarding co-ordination and co-operation, particularly between designers and contractors to encourage more integration;
- simplifying the assessment of the competence of organisations.
If we are to make an impact and avoid the problems that have dogged CDM then the way we proceed is at least as important as the final product. I want all interested parties to feel involved and to have a real opportunity to influence the outcome. I should, therefore, appreciate it if you would use your contacts to identify opportunities for either informal discussions or presentations to meetings. I also hope to establish an internet discussion forum where we can post drafts and people can comment on them or put forward their own ideas.
Stephen Wright
HSE Construction Policy
Tel. 020 7717 6308
Source: Stephen Wright, HSE
Proposed Revisions to the ACoP for the CDM Regulations
The following transcript is reproduced with the permission of Stephen Wright who spoke at our User Forum 28th September 2000. Stephen is a policy section head at the HSE and is responsible for the consultative document regarding the proposed revisions to the ACoP for the CDM Regulations.
Bringing Major Changes To The Construction Health And Safety Law Framework
Some people have been ignoring their CDM responsibilities. Some have been producing mountains of paperwork without adding anything useful as far as health & safety is concerned. To others it is a weight that drags them back in their pursuit of business efficiency. It is just a mass of meaningless paperwork. Leading to frustration.
So there you are then, just relaxing with the comfortable old ACoP and along comes the CD (Consultative Document 161 The Proposed Revisions to ACoP). What do you think of it? I really want to know. In that it still needs a lot of work to get it to a satisfactory state. The only way it will reach a usable end format is if you play your part and share your experience of putting the principles of CDM into practice and avoiding the meaningless bureaucracy!
Make no mistake we must do something. Accident numbers are increasing and so are accident rates. The government expects us to do something to turn things around. One strand of this is to improve the management of construction projects and the new ACoP can play a part in achieving that. We need a lot more though. Please send your thoughts to me on the back of a blank cheque!
John Prescott and Bill Callaghan are planning to host a construction summit early next year where construction companies, including clients, designers, etc., will be expected to commit themselves to practical improvements.
Focus Groups
The focus groups concluded that the problems were not with the Regulations themselves and that most people could live with them - strangely most of the comments we have received so far have involved suggestions that would involve changing the Regs. The one thing we have ruled out!
We wanted everyone to be able to understand their duties and what they had to do comply. We wanted the guidance to be easy to understand and easy to navigate.
In particular we need to provide information to designers about what information they should pass on to contractors, more of this later.
Case Study Material
Practical illustrations of good practice should help people who want to comply, but don't know how to go about it.
We need to cover the full range of construction work. The CD probably tends to assume that construction equates to building. Ideas about ways to broaden the range of work covered (demolition, civil engineering, engineering construction, maintenance) would be welcome.
It is particularly difficult to ensure the competence and resources of those involved in a project without generating a lot of work. We need to strike a balance here - how have we done? Can you provide a better idea or suggest improvements?
Planning & Good Management
Planning is essential to health & safety, but many plans achieve nothing because they are collections of useless, and unused paperwork. How can we make them into useful documents? Will what we have suggested work? Have you any better ideas/ways we can improve?
One reported problem is that designers often don't appreciate the practical implications of their decisions and the health & safety implications. Is that correct? If so do you agree that it is essential that they do?
I have met 2 groups of people as far as planning supervisors are concerned. There are those who want to get rid of them, preferably terminating with extreme prejudice. Then there are the planning supervisors! I certainly want to get rid of those that don't add value as far as health & safety is concerned. Have we struck the right balance? (Since almost 4,000 copies of the CD, 2/3 of the total distributed so far, have been distributed to APS members responses may be biased. If this worries you, make sure you cast your vote!)
What do you think of our definitions, mainly listed in the glossary? Can you improve on them?
I want the good companies to know what is expected of them so that they can achieve it. I want our Inspectors to be able to enforce reasonable standards where people are not inclined to comply voluntarily. Is it? If not how can it be improved on!
I don't want people doing work that does not generate health & safety benefits, worse generating paper that buries the important bits of information. Have we achieved that? How could we improve on what we have done? Text of guidance needs to be amended in view of these changes, but the changes aren't likely to be substantial. These are the main strands we have tried to draw out for 3 of the key duty holders.
This is probably one of the most significant changes. I believe it provides a sensible basis for deciding what should be communicated. What do you think of the definition and examples? Can they, with some further work, provide the information that contractors need - without loads of rubbish piled on top? I also hope designers who identify such significant hazards will reconsider to see if they can be eliminated or reduced.
CDM is about some of the procedural aspects of managing construction work, e.g. choosing competent players, communication, co-operation and planning, but the requirements about actually managing the work are the general requirements of the Health And Safety At Work act. We have the construction management guidance. Is that enough, or do we need some ACoP? If so can we say something useful that covers the whole range of construction work in a few paragraphs?
The way of achieving improved health & safety in construction, in my opinion, is to improve the management of the whole project from conception, though construction, maintenance and through to eventual demolition - I would say from the cradle to the grave, but I want less of this industry's workforce to end up in their graves prematurely. CDM will not ensure good management, but I believe it provides a suitable framework for good management. Work with us to get it right.
DCM - 16 October 2000
Source: Stephen Wright, HSE
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