Free tool
Construction phase plan readiness checker
Tick what your plan already covers and see what is still missing against the topics HSE guidance lists. Nothing to buy at the end.
This tool gives general guidance from the answers you type. It is not legal advice about your project, and it cannot see your drawings or your site. Where a project is unusual the answer is a conversation rather than a checker. How we write this.
Where this list comes from
Regulation 12(2) of CDM 2015 requires the plan to set out the health and safety arrangements and the site rules, and where relevant to include specific measures for work in the Schedule 3 categories. HSE guidance expands that into the topics to consider when drawing the plan up, which is what the checklist above follows. The last two items, subcontractor arrangements and how the plan will be kept current, are not in that list but follow from regulation 12(4), which requires the plan to be reviewed, updated and revised throughout the project.
Whose plan it is
The principal contractor draws it up, under regulation 12(1). On a project with only one contractor, that contractor draws it up under regulation 15(5). The plan can be prepared with help, because regulation 12(1) allows the principal contractor to make arrangements for it to be drawn up, but the duty does not move.
What to leave out
HSE guidance is direct about this. The plan should not include documents that get in the way of a clear understanding of what is needed to manage the construction phase, such as generic risk assessments, records of how decisions were reached, or detailed safety method statements. A short plan people read beats a long one they do not.
Sources
- CDM 2015, regulation 12 legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, regulation 15 legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, Schedule 3 legislation.gov.uk
- Managing health and safety in construction, L153, Appendix 3 HSE guidance