The three-stage assessment process
In this blog we are going to look at the three-stage assessment process for establishing competency under the Construction Design and management regulations 2015.
Introduction
Stage 1 assessment
Stage 2 assessment
Stage 3 assessment
Summary of stage assessments
Introduction
As a client wanting to commission a construction project, there are many duties that you must fulfil under the CDM regulations and in this blog, I want to look at the duty to:
Ensure those you appoint are competent and adequately resourced to carry out their health and safety responsibilities by following a three-stage assessment process for establishing competency under the Construction Design and Management Regulations 2015 (CDM).
Which includes appointing a Principal Designer unless as client, you choose to take on the principal design role. Each duty holder that you appoint must satisfy the following criteria in each stage.
The three-stage assessment process also applies to the appointment of Principal Contractors and Designers as defined in the CDM regulations.
The specific roles of each Duty Holder will also be discussed in a future blog post.
Stage 1 assessment
1. Health and safety policy and organisation for health and safety.
Standard to be achieved:
Implement appropriate policy that is regularly reviewed and signed off by the Managing Director or equivalent. The policy must be relevant to the nature and scale of your work and set out the responsibilities for health and safety management at all levels within the organisation.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
A signed, current copy of the company policy indicating when it was last reviewed and by whose authority it was published.
2. Arrangements.
Standard to be achieved:
These should set out the arrangements for health and safety management within the organisation and should be relevant to the nature and scale of the work. There should be a clear indication of how these arrangements are communicated to the workforce. For work undertaken under the CDM Regulations 2015 it should set out how the company will discharge it’s duties
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
A clear explanation of the arrangements which the company has made for putting its health and safety policy into effect and for discharging its duties under CDM.
3. Competent advice.
Standard to be achieved:
The organisation, and its employees, must have ready access to competent health and safety advice, preferably from within your own organisation The
advisor must be able to provide general health and safety advice, and advice relating to the specific nature of your business.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
The name and competency details of the source of advice, for example a CV
for your advisors, safety group, trade federation, or external health and safety consultant who provides health and safety information and advice.
4. Training and information.
Standard to be achieved:
The organisation should have in place, and implement, training arrangements to ensure your employees have the skills and understanding necessary to fulfil the work. It should should have in place a programme for refresher training which will keep employees updated on new developments and changes to legislation or good health and safety practice. This applies throughout the organisation from the leadership team to new staff and trainees.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
Training records in including a training matrix to when training took place and when it will expire. Sample toolbox talks and evidence of external accredited training and internal inhouse training.
5. Individual qualifications and experience
Standard to be achieved:
Employees are expected to have the appropriate qualifications and experience for the assigned tasks, unless they are under controlled and competent supervision.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
Details of qualifications and/or experience of specific corporate post holders for example:
Board members and Health and safety advisors.
Other key roles should be named or identified and details of relevant qualifications and experience provided. Evidence of safety, trade and/or professional competency information for the tasks/roles which the company may provide.
6. Monitoring, audit and review
Standard to be achieved:
The organisation should have a system for monitoring its procedures, for auditing them at periodic intervals, and for reviewing them on an ongoing basis.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
This could be through formal audit or reports or evidence of recent monitoring.
7. Workforce involvement
Standard to be achieved:
Implementation of an established means of consulting with your workforce on health and safety matters.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
The organisation must provide evidence showing how consultation is carried out e.g. health and safety committee’s minutes, safety notices etc.
8. Accident reporting and enforcement action; follow-up investigation
Standard to be achieved:
You should have records of all RIDDOR reportable events for at least the last 3 years.
You should also have In place a system for reviewing all incidents, and recording the action which you have taken to remedy matters subject to enforcement action.
You should record any enforcement action taken by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) against your company in the last five years and the action taken to remedy the enforcement action.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
Provide evidence showing the way in which you record and investigate accidents and incidents.
Records of any enforcement action taken over the last 5 years, and what action was taken to put matters right. Information regarding enforcement taken by HSE over last 5 years is available on the HSE website).
And will be checked as part of the three stage assessment process.
Records should include any incidents that occurred whilst the company traded under a different name, and any incidents that occur to direct employees or labour only sub-contractors.
9. Sub-contracting /consulting procedures (if applicable)
Standard to be achieved:
You should have arrangements in place for appointing competent sub-contractors/consultants.
You should be able to demonstrate how you ensure that sub-contractors or consultants are competent to carry out their duties.
You should have arrangements for monitoring sub-contractor performance.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
Provide evidence showing how you ensure sub-contractors are competent and give examples of sub-contractor assessments you have carried out.
Also provide evidence showing how you monitor sub-contractor performance.
10. Hazard Elimination and risk control (Designers Only)
Standard to be achieved:
Have arrangements for co-operation and co-ordination of design work within the design team and with other designers/contractors.
Demonstrate competency within your field of expertise and be able to identify risks including how risks will be eliminated or controlled though the application of good deign.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
Provide evidence showing how you:
Ensure co-operation and co-ordination of design work within the design team and with other designers/contractors.
Ensure that hazards are eliminated and any remaining risks controlled.
Ensure that any structure which will be used as a workplace will meet relevant requirements of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992
Examples showing how risk was reduced through design; and provide short summary of how changes to design will be managed.
The emphasis here should be on practical measures which reduce particular risks arising from the design, not on lengthy procedural documentation highlighting generic risks.
11. Risk assessment leading to a safe method of work (contractors only)
Standard to be achieved:
You should have procedures in place for carrying out risk assessments and for developing and implementing safe systems of work/method statements.
The identification of health issues is expected to feature prominently in this system.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
Provide evidence showing how the company will identify significant health and safety risks and how they will be controlled.
Provide sample risk assessments / safe systems of work / method statements.
If you employ less than five persons and do not have written arrangements, you should be able to describe how you achieve the above. This will depend upon the nature of the work but must reflect the importance of the risk area.
12. Co-operating with others and co-ordinating your work with that of other contractors (contractors)
Standard to be achieved:
Demonstrate how co-operation and co-ordination of your work is achieved in practice, and how you involve the workforce in drawing up method statements / safe systems of work.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
Provide evidence which could include sample risk assessments, procedural arrangements, and project team meeting notes.
Provide evidence of how the company co-ordinates its work with other trades.
13. Welfare provision (contractors)
Standard to be achieved:
You should be able to demonstrate how you will ensure that appropriate welfare facilities will be in place before people start work on site.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
Provide evidence which could include for example health and safety policy commitment; contracts with welfare facility providers; details of type of welfare facilities provided on previous projects.
Stage 2 assessment
1. Work experience
Standard to be achieved:
You should give details of relevant experience in the field of work for which you are applying.
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
Provide a simple record of recent projects / contracts, with contact details for an individual / company who can verify that work was carried out with due regard to health and safety.
This should be sufficient to demonstrate your ability to deal with the key health and safety issues arising from the work you are applying for.
Where there are significant shortfalls in previous experience, or there are risks associated with the project which have not been managed before, an explanation of how these shortcomings will be overcome will be required.
Stage 3 assessment
1. Review of the Register of convictions and notices
Standard to be achieved:
Organisations are to be checked against:
Public register of convictions up to 12 months
Public register of convictions between 1 and 10 years old
Public register of enforcement notices up to five years old
The public register of convictions provides details of enforcement notices issued by the HSE within the last five years.
Public register of enforcement notices between five and ten years old. This site provides details enforcement notices issued by HSE against
organisations.
Searches can be by cases or breaches, the information provided includes:
Date of prosecution
District the case was heard at (Court)
The level of fine
The offence
The legislation breached
Evidence to demonstrate achievement of standard required:
The registers contain Health and Safety Executive (HSE) enforcement information on notices and convictions for Great Britain. The site gives details of prosecution cases pursued by the HSE, that resulted in successful convictions.
To account for the appeals process and internal quality assurance, cases
are published 9 weeks following conviction.
Records of convictions of organisations are published on this register for 1 year before being transferred to the conviction history register, where they are published for a further 9 years.
Records of any enforcement action taken over the last 5/10 years, and
what action was taken to put matters right (information on enforcement
taken by HSE over last 5 years is available on the HSE website.
Records should include any incidents that occurred whilst the company traded under a different name, and any incidents that occur to direct employees or labour only sub-contractors.
Typical information available from the “Public register of convictions includes the following:
Case/breach
Defendant’s name
Date of prosecution
District the case was heard at (Court)
The level of fine
The offence
The legislation breached
Summary of the stage assessments
Stage 1
Application to a companies Approved Contractor List.
The company/ Client would check their suitability.
If approved, the company/ Client should reevaluate at regular intervals.
Stage 2
Evaluation is done once a project has been identified.
Pre-Construction Information (PCI) should be shared as part of the tendering process.
This stage should be repeated for each new project as variations in the PCI will occur.
Stage 3
A check should be made of the HSE Prosecutions Register which can be accessed at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/prosecutions/
Typical information available from the “Public register of convictions includes the following:
case/breach
defendant’s name
date of prosecution
district the case was heard at (Court)
the level of fine
the offence
the legislation breached
For further information and a general overview CDM, please see our earlier blog:
Construction Design Management Regulations 2015:
For an explanation of the role of competency withing the Construction Design and Management regulations, please see our blog:
If you require further assistance with any of the topics raised in this post or assistance with CDM on your current or future projects, please get in touch.
Yorkshire Health and Safety