Home CDM Commercial sfsmancon 07/10/2024 01/04/2023 -

CDM Principal Contractor

Commercial Clients

Under the CDM 2015 Regulations Client Duties apply in full for commercial clients. They must obey all of the regulations on pain of a fine at the least. If anybody is injured or even, perish the thought, dies on site; they could face prosecution with fines or imprisonment.

Commercial Clients Roles and Responsibilities can be found here HSE Commercial Regulations

One of the Commercial Client’s earliest obligations is to appoint a Principal Designer, who will probably be the Architect who is already carrying out the project design.

Additionally the Commercial Clients must also appoint a Principal Contractor who will by law have to carry out their duties as laid down in the regulations.

SFS Management Contracting would carry out the role of Principal Contractor together with the rest of their services. This would require a small charge and the only condition would be that it would be part of a full service contract.

We could be appointed to carry out the Principal Contractor role as a stand alone service. However, we’d need to spend a good deal of time on site, as well as producing a Construction Phase Plan. Consequently, we would need to levy a separate larger charge for obvious reasons.

The whole Health & Safety scenario is a minefield for Commercial Clients and takes up a lot of time. It is advised therefore to engage a specialist company such as HS Direct to assist clients with their legal duties.

Alternatively you could just ignore the Regulations and hope that you don’t get a visit from an HSE inspector! I definitely wouldn’t advise that though. Inspections are carried out by very assertive individuals who have the right of entry to your premises.

If they find any breaches of the law, they are empowered to levy Fees for Intervention, (FFI) which are now £166 per hour spent on your site or case. The fees are imposed on the person or entity (Company) they determine is responsible for those breaches.

If the breach is of a serious nature then that person or entities (Company Directors) could also face additional draconian fines, costs or even prosecution.

The additional FFI costs levied by an HSE Inspector would be far more than the cost of compliance; which is the whole purpose of them.

On top of their other powers, Inspectors can force a total closure of the site until all of their demands for compliance have been met, which would cause huge delays to any project.

Our Pledge to You

To manage your project with a professional and non-partisan approach.

Work in partnership to gain the best from the Building Experience.

Assist you to finish up with the most cost effective project.