Survey to broaden understanding of how the CDM 2015 Principal Designer role is working in practice

This survey is being conducted for HSE who are launching this important new research to broaden understanding of how the CDM 2015 Principal Designer role is working in practice (both the benefits and challenges).

HSE has appointed MPW R&R to undertake this research, and we are inviting you to take part in this crucial survey – more details and a link to the survey are provided in this article.

Take part in the CDM 2015 Principal Designer survey

This survey is being conducted for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) who are launching this important new research to broaden understanding of how the CDM 2015 Principal Designer (PD) role is working in practice (both the benefits and challenges).

HSE has appointed MPW R&R to undertake this important research, and we are inviting you to take part in this survey which is a crucial part of broadening that understanding.

In this survey, we are seeking views from a range of people and organisations that have experience of the PD role either by:

• being appointed as a PD;
• being appointed as one of the other CDM 2015 duty holders (Client, Designer, Principal Contractor or Contractor); or
• working on or interacting with construction projects where a PD was appointed.

We are looking for input from people and organisations who have worked on all types of construction projects where PDs have been appointed – from the smallest to the largest.

In particular, we are seeking your views on how the PD role is being implemented in order to broaden our understanding of both the benefits of the role and the challenges to implementing it.

The survey is structured in four parts as follows:

• Part 1 – General information about you and your organisation
• Part 2 – Application of the PD role on a recent project
• Part 3 – Use of scenarios to understand key behaviours that support or detract from the PD role
• Part 4 – Your overall conclusions in relation to the PD role

Part 2 focuses on what CDM 2015 requires of PDs and covers the relevant aspects of Regulations 5, 8 , 11 and 12.  If you undertake the PD role, you can answer this part by referring to the actions that you took on a recent project.  If you were not the PD, then you can answer this section by referring to the actions that the PD took on a recent project.

In Part 3, we are looking to broaden understanding of why particular behaviours happen.   Each scenario has a series of ‘situations’ or ‘behaviours’ that may arise over the course of a CDM project (e.g. low fees for some PD roles or some organisations not being willing to undertake the PD role).  Each ‘situation’ or ‘behaviour’ has a set of accompanying explanations as to why it may happen – we are seeking your views on how much those explanations influence behaviour or whether there are other explanations.

In Part 4, we want to draw things together and look to the future.  In particular, we are seeking your views on:

• The three key successes of the PD role
• The three key barriers in implementing the PD role
• What value the PD role could bring to future projects
• What solutions you would propose to overcome the challenges that you have identified
• Any other comments that haven’t already been covered

We are due to deliver our report to HSE by 31 March 2021.  Given that deadline, it would be very helpful if you could let us have your response by midnight on Sunday 7^th March 2021.  The survey can be completed in SurveyMonkey, and will take around 30 minutes.

We will also be seeking the views of key stakeholder organisations via interviews and/or written submissions.  These will be analysed in conjunction with the survey results to draw overall conclusions.

Our findings were published by HSE as HSE Research Report 1198. The Technical Annex contains detailed analyses of the data obtained from the large-scale survey and stakeholder interviews carried out for the review.

Please share this link to the survey with anyone who you think may be interested: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/722855H

About the author:

Dr Mike Webster is a chartered civil and structural engineer (FICE, FIStructE) with over 30 years’ experience.  He specialises in construction and structural safety, CDM and risk, and founded MPW R&R to provide Consulting, Forensic and Expert Witness services in those areas.

Mike has worked on the design, appraisal and site supervision of building and bridge structures.  He has developed guidance for assessing the safety of existing structures.  Mike led an independent review of CDM 1994 and the independent evaluation of CDM 2007.  He also led the review of the use of CDM 2007 in the construction of London 2012.

Mike has been instructed as an expert witness by both defence and prosecution teams in cases involving allegations of gross negligence manslaughter, breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act, the CDM Regulations, the Work at Height Regulations and the appeal of enforcement notices.

Mike is the author of around 20 published reports and papers on construction health and safety and the CDM Regulations.  He is also the author of a range of articles on CDM 2015.   He is a member of Structural-Safety and the Institution of Structural Engineers Health and Safety Panel.

For more information email Mike at mike.webster@mpwrandr.co.uk or give him a call on 07969 957471.