In our previous video, we outlined the duties of a domestic and commercial client under the CDM 2015 Regulations. In this short video, we will explain the duties held by designers.

CDM Regulations provide a mechanism to help reduce and minimise risk in construction by assigning legal responsibility to key people involved in any given construction project.

Health and safety responsibilities and project duties are divided between “duty holders”, which include the clients, designers, contractors and workers and outline steps to be taken to ensure risk is managed throughout the construction project.

Designer Duties

The CDM Regulations 2015 introduced two types of designers in a construction project, these include the following.

1. Designers

The designers are any individuals or organisations that provide or alter designs for a project. The design includes drawings, specifications, bills of quantity and design calculations.

A designer can be an architect, engineer, interior designer, surveyor and quantity surveyor or anyone who specifies and alters designs as part of their work.

If the contractor is preparing or altering design work, they can also hold the designer’s duties.

Designers must do the following:

1. Client Awareness: Make sure the client is aware of the client’s duties under CDM Regulations
2. Managing Risk: When designing consider the pre-construction information, eliminate foreseeable health and safety risks and take steps to reduce or control any risks that cannot be eliminated
3. Provide Information: The designer must provide the design information to the rest of the team including the client, principal designer, contractor and principal contractor.
4. Communicate: The designer must communicate, cooperate and coordinate with all duty holders.

2. Principal Designer (PD)

A Principal Designer is appointed when there is more than one contractor on a project. The Principal Designer is a designer and will take the lead during the pre-construction phase of the project, so they should have vast technical construction knowledge and experience.

The Principal Designer is not by default the Architect, although the Architect can take on the PD role with a written agreement.

The Principal Designer will take the lead during the pre-construction phase of the project and their duties include the following:

1. Set up the Project: The Principal Designer should help the client set up the project. They will need to make sure the client is aware of their responsibilities under CDM and help them prepare the client brief.
2. Advise Clients about Time and Resources Needed: The Principal Designer must advise the client on how much time should be allocated to the project and the resources that will be needed.
3. Pre-Construction Information: While the client is responsible for obtaining and providing pre-construction information, the Principal Designer should check the adequacy of the information, identify any missing information, and advise the client on how to obtain the information. They will then put this information together to share with other contractors on the project.
4. Eliminate Foreseeable Risks: The Principal Designer needs to identify any potential health and safety risks that could arise during the project. And once risks are identified, they need to consider ways to eliminate or reduce them. Where possible, they should eliminate risks completely. Control measures should be placed to reduce any remaining risks and improve the health and safety of the building site and overall project.
5. Liaise with other Duty Holders: Cooperation and communication between all contractors and designers are hugely important. The Principal Designer needs to liaise with other individuals and organisations involved in the project and communicate pre-construction information and health and safety needs. This communication should continue until project completion.