Overhaul of health and safety responsibilities means designers must place safety at the heart of design, says Beale and Complany partner Sheena Sood.

A critical shift in thinking is vital across the construction design community to embrace new responsibilities outlined in the new health and safety legislation according to legal experts.

Speaking in a recent webinar on the new Construction, Design and Management (CDM) regulations, specialist construction lawyers Beale & Company Partner Sheena Sood highlights the widening scope and application of the regulations and the need for designers to prepare.  

“The Regulations requires a mind shift for designers from health and safety being an ancillary design consideration to being integral to their design thinking,” Sood explains. 

The CDM Regulations 2015 will come into force on 6th April.

Sheena Sood and Andrew Croft of Beale & Company discuss the key changes and the impact on appointments, insurance arrangements and the procurement process in a new webinar – to acces the webinar click here. 

“That means from the outset considering safety issues with the design rather than an afterthought” she adds. “Or starting off thinking is there  a different way of designing an element which will make it safer to construct or safer to maintain?”

The draft revised CDM regulations were published in January and are due to come into force on 6 April this year. 

The new regulations contain some significant changes to the current CDM Regulations 2007 and take on board feedback from the recent public consultation (details here). The early publication of these draft Regulations and accompanying guidance aims to allow project participants to familiarise themselves with their changing obligations before the new Regulations come into force.  

The implications were discussed in a webinar with Sood and Andrew Croft of Beale & to give an overview of the key changes and the impact on appointments, insurance arrangements and the procurement process.

The Regulations increase the duties on duty holders. For the first time domestic clients are brought within the remit of the Regulations and the CDM Coordinator role has been abolished. 

The new role of a Principal Designer is introduced with a shift in emphasis on the importance of the designer's role as integral to health and safety in construction from concept through to construction through to use of the structure. 

Sood highlights the increasing focus of the HSE on the role of the designer and how, with the key role for safety placed firmly on designers, the HSE see as design as integral to health and safety in construction from concept through to construction through to use of the structure. 

Whether this shift can also happen for architects who can tend prioritise aesthetics above engineering and construction considerations, she adds, remains to be seen. 

Also highlighted in the webinar is the substantial challenge for the future with those who educate and train would-be designers to treat safety as fundamental to the design process.

Ensuring that new entrants to the design profession are armed them with sufficient knowledge about how things are built to give them the necessary skills to deliver is cruticak, she says. 

“BIM will help with coordination and collaboration but until there is acceptance of the importance of safety in design,” says Sood highlighting that the new Regulations will continue to involve those within a project team shifting health and safety responsibly to others. 

“Whether the HSE have finally got it right remains to be seen but new drafting and guidance alone won’t help without the aims being embraced by the industry as a whole and all those in the supply chain,” she adds.