Service
Construction phase plan support
The plan stays yours. What we provide is the project information to write it from, and a straight answer on what a proportionate plan for this job actually covers.
Short answer
A construction phase plan records the health and safety arrangements for the construction phase, the site rules, and any special measures for the categories of work in Schedule 3. It is required before a construction site is set up, on every project including small domestic ones. The principal contractor draws it up, or the contractor where there is only one. ClearCDM does not write it and does not take the duty; we supply the information it is built from.
Whose document it is
Regulation 12(1): during the pre-construction phase, and before setting up a construction site, the principal contractor must draw up a construction phase plan, or make arrangements for a construction phase plan to be drawn up. Regulation 15(5) puts the same duty on the contractor where there is only one contractor on the project.
We are direct about this because the marketing around construction phase plans often is not. The plan is the contractor's document and the duty is the contractor's duty. Nobody sells that away, and a plan written by a consultant who has never spoken to the person running the site is a worse document, not a safer one.
What a proportionate plan covers
HSE guidance sets out the topics to consider: a description of the project including key dates and the key members of the project team; the management of the work, covering the health and safety aims, the site rules, the arrangements for cooperation and coordination, involving workers, site induction, welfare facilities, and fire and emergency procedures; and the control of any of the specific risks listed in Schedule 3 where they are relevant.
The same guidance is clear about proportion in both directions. Enough detail to actually set out the arrangements, the site rules and any special measures. But not so much that the plan stops being usable: it warns specifically against including generic risk assessments, records of how decisions were reached, and detailed safety method statements.
Check your plan against the categories.
What ClearCDM does
Where we are the principal designer, regulation 12(3) requires us to give the principal contractor the information we hold that is relevant to the plan: the pre-construction information from the client, and the risk information we have gathered from the designers. That is the practical half of the job, and it is why a contractor working on a ClearCDM project starts the plan with the site's actual constraints in front of them rather than a blank template.
Alongside that we tell the contractor plainly which of the Schedule 3 categories are live on this project and which are not, so a two storey rear extension does not end up carrying eleven pages about diving operations and caissons.
In development. A structured construction phase plan builder, taking the project information already gathered for the pre-construction information so the same facts are not typed twice, is being built. The readiness checker below is the first piece of it and is live now.
Common questions
Does a small domestic job need a construction phase plan?
Yes. There is no size threshold. On a project with more than one contractor the principal contractor draws it up under regulation 12(1); on a single contractor project the contractor does, under regulation 15(5). What changes with the size of the job is how long the plan is, not whether it exists.
Can ClearCDM write our construction phase plan for us?
No, and it would not help if we did. The plan records how you intend to run this site, so it has to come from you. What we can do is give you the project information to write it from and be clear about what a proportionate plan for this job covers.
Is a template plan good enough?
A template gives you the headings. It becomes a problem when the content is generic, because HSE guidance says the plan should record the arrangements for managing the significant risks of this construction phase, and warns against padding it with generic risk assessments and detailed method statements that get in the way.
What has to be in place before work starts?
On a project with more than one contractor: the principal contractor appointed in writing, a construction phase plan in existence, and the welfare facilities in Schedule 2 provided. Where the project is notifiable, the F10 as well.
Sources
- CDM 2015, regulation 12: construction phase plan and health and safety file legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, regulation 15: duties of contractors legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, Schedule 3: work involving particular risks legislation.gov.uk
- Managing health and safety in construction, L153, Appendix 3 HSE guidance on the Regulations
Check your plan against the categories
The free readiness checker walks the topics HSE guidance lists and shows what is missing from yours, with nothing to buy at the end.
Open the readiness checker →