From chapter ‘Health and Safety law affecting architects’

Health and safety is a major matter of debate between architects, employers and contractors. The most significant legislation ever to affect the construction industry was implemented by the Construction Design and Management (‘CDM’) Regulations 1994. These were replaced by the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 (the ‘CDM Regulations 2007’) which aimed to clarify and improve the regulations which they superseded, and came into force on 6 April 2007. The legislation is complex and gives rise to additional costs in compliance.

The introduction of CDM legislation has seen a string of prosecutions by the Health and Safety Executive (the ‘HSE’, which is the enforcement arm of the Health and Safety Commission), together with the publication of formal amendments to the standard forms of contract by the Joint Contracts Tribunal (‘JCT’) and the Institution of Civil Engineers (‘ICE’). Subsequent amendments have been published by both organisations to reflect the changes arising from the 2007 Regulations. These prosecutions and publications gave meat to the bones of the Regulations by showing the type of incident that would be prosecuted and the effect of health and safety issues on the normal contractual relationship. In terms of the prosecutions, the HSE followed the spirit of the legislation and focused upon the ‘client’ as target, but at the same time held the designer responsible, in some cases, for failing to warn the client adequately of his responsibilities. The case law highlights the increasing importance of architects being familiar with and adhering to health and safety legislation. In terms of the amendments to the standard forms of contract, these have increased the grounds for extensions of time and loss and expense for the contractor arising from the performance of the office-holders for health and safety purposes: the CDM coordinator and the principal contractor.

Also of significance are the Control of Asbestos Regulations (‘CoAR’) 2006, which replaced the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002. The CoAR impose a duty in relation to ‘non-domestic premises’ to manage asbestos risk, and are discussed in greater detail later in the chapter.

The scope of this chapter is to consider the structure of the existing legislation and, more importantly, to provide a practical guide to the obligations of the architect under the CDM Regulations in the context of the various stages within the project plan. The architect’s existing and future obligations under the CoAR will also be explained. This should enable architects to advise clients how to minimise their exposure and so avoid prosecution.

Download the full chapter by clicking here