Pre-construction information
What is pre-construction information?
Short answer
Pre-construction information is the health and safety information about a project that the client already holds or can reasonably obtain, provided to every designer and contractor who needs it. HSE guidance sets three tests: it must be relevant to the particular project, at an appropriate level of detail, and proportionate to the risks involved. Designers design around it, contractors price and plan from it, and under regulation 12(3) it is what the construction phase plan is built on.
Who it is for
Two audiences, and the document works better when you can see which sentence is for which.
- Designers and contractors bidding for the work, so they can put together a bid based on a clear understanding of what is actually involved.
- Designers and contractors already appointed, so they can carry out their own duties: designing risk out, and planning and managing the work.
HSE guidance adds a third function: some of it feeds the health and safety file at the end.
Who provides it
The client has the main duty, under regulation 4(4): provide pre-construction information as soon as is practicable to every designer and contractor appointed or being considered.
On a project with more than one contractor, the principal designer must assist, under regulation 11(6). HSE guidance describes that as helping the client assess whether the existing information has significant gaps, taking reasonable steps to fill them, and then getting the information out in a convenient form.
On a domestic project regulation 7(1) moves the client's regulation 4 duties to the principal contractor, or to the principal designer where there is a written agreement. More on who does what.
It is a process, not a document
The single most useful line in HSE's guidance on this is that the information should be gathered and added to as the design progresses, and that preliminary information gathered at the start of the project is unlikely to be sufficient. That is why a pre-construction information pack issued once at the beginning and never touched again usually fails on its own terms.
It is also why what is missing matters as much as what is known. A pack that says an asbestos survey has not yet been carried out and names who is commissioning it is doing its job. A pack that quietly says nothing about asbestos is not.
What it is not
| Not this | Because |
|---|---|
| The construction phase plan | That is the contractor's document about how the site will be run. Pre-construction information is the input to it |
| The health and safety file | The file is about the finished building and the next project. Some information overlaps, but the audiences are different |
| A risk assessment | Risk assessments belong to whoever is doing the work. HSE guidance specifically warns against padding documents with generic ones |
| A generic template | The first of the three tests is relevance to the particular project |
Sources
- CDM 2015, regulation 4: client duties in relation to managing projects legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, regulation 11: duties of a principal designer legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, regulation 12: construction phase plan and health and safety file legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, regulation 7: application to domestic clients legislation.gov.uk
- Managing health and safety in construction, L153 HSE guidance on the Regulations
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