About this guidance

How we write this guidance

Where the statements on this site come from, what we check them against, and what we will not do.

Primary sources first

Every regulatory statement in the guidance section is written from the legislation or from HSE, in that order. In practice that means the text of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 on legislation.gov.uk, HSE's guidance on the Regulations, L153, and HSE's own dutyholder pages. Where a page relies on a specific regulation we name the regulation, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

We do not write regulatory statements from other consultants' websites. They are useful for seeing what people are asking about. They are not a source for what the law says.

What we will not do

• Invent statistics, or quote a figure we cannot point at a source for.
• Use fear to sell an appointment. The regulations are clear enough without help.
• Claim that appointing us makes a project compliant. No supplier can put that in writing honestly, because compliance depends on what everybody on the project does.
• Describe anybody at ClearCDM as an architect. Nobody here is one, and the title is protected.
• Publish a page about a place we do not work in, or a case study that did not happen.

This is guidance, not advice

The pages here explain what the regulations say and how they usually work out in practice. They are not legal advice about your project, and the free tools on this site give general guidance from the answers you type rather than a decision about your particular circumstances. Where a project is unusual, the answer is a conversation, not a checker.

Review

Each guidance page carries the date it was last reviewed. Pages are reviewed when the underlying regulations or HSE guidance change, and otherwise on a rolling basis. If you think something here is wrong, tell us and we will check it against the source and correct it or explain why we read it the way we do.

Who writes this

Two people write and review these pages. Every guidance page names which of them wrote it, next to the date it was last reviewed.

Robbie Thompson, BA (Hons) Dip Arch, SMSTS qualified, with over 15 years in architecture and construction.

James Nicholson, BSc (Hons) Architectural Technology, with over 20 years in architecture and construction, including site and project management.

Both of us hold architectural qualifications. Neither of us uses the title architect, for the reason given above.