Principal designer
When should the principal designer be appointed?
Short answer
As soon as is practicable, and in any event before the construction phase begins. That is regulation 5(2) of CDM 2015. In practice the useful moment is early in design, once the shape of the project is settled enough for the risks to be visible but before the drawings have fixed how the work will be built. An appointment made the week before the builder starts is lawful in the narrow sense and has already missed most of what the role is for.
Why timing is the whole point
The principal designer's duties are about the pre-construction phase. Coordinating design risks, assembling the pre-construction information, making sure the people pricing the job know what they are pricing. All of those are worth something before decisions are fixed and worth progressively less afterwards.
HSE guidance makes the same point about the information: pre-construction information should be gathered and added to as the design progresses, and preliminary information gathered at the start of a project is unlikely to be sufficient. It is a process across the design, not a document produced at the end of it.
A practical timeline for a domestic project
- Concept and feasibility
Raise the appointment. The designer's own regulation 9(1) duty to be satisfied the client knows their duties bites here anyway.
- Planning stage
A good moment to appoint. The design is real enough to have risks and still open enough to change.
- Technical design
The information gathering runs alongside it. The structural design, the survey work and the existing building information all arrive around now.
- Tender or pricing
The pre-construction information pack should exist by now, so everybody pricing the job is pricing the same project.
- Before start on site
The last lawful moment for the appointment, and the point at which the principal contractor, the construction phase plan and welfare must all be in place.
If you are already late
Appoint anyway, and do not let the lateness become a reason for doing nothing. A principal designer appointed at tender stage can still coordinate the design risk information, get the pre-construction information to whoever is pricing, and set the health and safety file up properly. A principal designer appointed after work starts can still deal with the design that is left, which on most projects is more than people expect.
What cannot be recovered is the chance to design a risk out before the detail was fixed. That is an argument for appointing earlier next time, not for skipping it this time.
Sources
- CDM 2015, regulation 5: appointment of the principal designer and the principal contractor legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, regulation 9: duties of designers legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, regulation 11: duties of a principal designer legislation.gov.uk
- Managing health and safety in construction, L153 HSE guidance on the Regulations
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