Do I Need Both A Principal Designer And A Client Advisor For My Construction Project?

A question we often get asked as specialist CDM consultants is ‘do I need both a Principal Designer and a Client Advisor? Couldn’t one person perform both roles?’

Most recently during a recent tender for the role of CDM Advisor on a large scale construction project, our team discovered our prospect client had merged the duties of the Client within the Principal Designer role and was intending to appoint the CDM Adviser as the Principal Designer.  It was apparent that the prospective client had been operating this way for years despite the defined roles being clearly set out in the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM) 2015.

So if companies are continuing to execute their projects this way, is this approach compliant with the regulations? Do we need two separate roles or can the role of the Client Adviser form part of the Principal Designer role?

What do the CDM Regulations 2015 say?

Under the CDM regulations 2015, the client has a series of legal obligations placed upon them that are vastly different from the responsibilities of the Principal Designer. 

The Role of the Client

According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the commercial client is any individual or organisation that carries out a construction project as part of a business. A construction project includes new builds, refurbishment and modernisation projects, and demolition projects.

Since the update of the CDM regulations in 2015, there have been many more duties placed on the client resulting in the client having much more influence over the project including:

• Appointing the relevant people to the project including the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor (on projects where there is more than one contractor) along with any other relevant designers and contractors with assigned responsibilities to ensure the project is designed with health, safety, and welfare in mind. Additionally, the client must ensure the duties of the appointed roles have been carried out throughout the duration of the project including the delivery of any required documentation for the project to commence.
• Set timescales and budget during the planning stages
• Ensure the required resources are available throughout the project
• Provide adequate information about the project for potential and appointed contractors

Contractual control ultimately sits with the client. 

The client duties were expanded during the 2015 regulation update.  For more complex projects, that may carry a higher cost value, the client carries considerable legal risk under their CDM obligations. 

As a result of this increase in responsibilities and risk, the client may seek external support and guidance from a CDM Client Advisor to assist in delivering the client duties effectively if they lack the resource or competency to confidently fulfil the role. 
 

The Role of the Principal Designer

Introduced in the 2015 CDM Regulations, the Principal Designer duty holder was introduced and out went the role of the CDM Coordinator, however, this was not a simple change of name. Overall, the Principal Designer has comparatively fewer duties than the CDM-coordinator ever had.  

The Principal Designer should be the individual or organisation in overall control of the pre-construction ‘design’ phase and as such the Principal Designer should not be selected on any other criteria.

The duties a Principal Designer must carry out during the project include:

• Plan and coordinate health and safety measures that will be used during the project including considering any existing documentation or safety management systems currently in place. This may involve making recommendations about the design of the project itself where changes may be made to help improve health and safety on-site
• Produce or update the Health and Safety File
• Assist and advise the client on any pre-construction information that may be required prior to works commencing and ensure relevant information is provided to both designers and contractors to aid them in carrying out their duties
• Take action to eliminate the risk where possible and introduce control measures to manage and reduce any remaining risks and liaise with the Principal Contractor about any foreseen risks that may be present or may arise during the construction phase of the project
• Ensure effective communication, cooperation, and coordination between members of the project team

Depending on the size of the project, the role of the Principal Designer may be fulfilled by an individual or an organisation and should be appointed by the client prior to the design phase of the project. It is important to note that should the client fail to appoint a Principal Designer, the role and legal obligations will fall to the Client in addition to their own duties.

So the duties of the Principal Designer can fall to the client, can the client duties fall to the Principal Designer in turn?

In short no. During the course of the project, the role of the Principal Designer may transfer to another organisation or individual and a new Principal Designer may need to be appointed at different stages of the project.

 The Client has a particular duty whereby they must ensure that both the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor are compliant in the duties. It is for this reason that it is best to maintain independence where monitoring is required as a conflict of interest may arise if the Principal Designer was to monitor themselves on behalf of the Client. 

Is a Principal Designer going to ensure all Client duties are being met and advise of any insufficiencies of their own role? The individual or organisation fulfilling the role of Principal Designer has no legal requirements under the CDM regulation 2015  to carry out, or more importantly, have the capability to carry out any of the client's obligations.  Nor does the law require the Principal Designer should have the capability or competency to act as a Client Advisor.  

In turn, a client cannot delegate their legal obligations to a Principal Designer. 

The Role of the CDM Client Advisor 

A CDM Client Advisor can help ensure that the client is meeting their legal obligations, mitigating the risk of criminal prosecution.  In addition, the CDM-A can independently monitor both the Principal Designer, through the pre-construction design phase,  and the Principal Contractor throughout the construction phase, ensuring both duty holders are discharging their obligations effectively. 

The CDM Client Advisor role is an advisory role that can help ensure that your project goals are met on time, on budget while securing the health and safety of all involved, vastly reducing the risk of criminal prosecution by mitigating the risk of breaching the regulations.