CDM Consultancy – Ensuring Safety and Best Practice

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 place legal duties on clients, principal designers, designers, principal contractors and contractors on every construction project in Great Britain. Our CDM regulations guide explains that framework in full — who holds which duties, when appointments must be made, and what each project has to produce. This page covers something different: what a CDM consultant can and cannot do for you within it, and how to choose one.

If you last looked at CDM before 2015, one change affects who you can hire

CDM 2015 abolished the CDM Coordinator and replaced it with the principal designer. That was not a rename. The coordinator was an adviser sitting alongside the design team; the principal designer is a dutyholder inside it, and must be a designer. The practical consequence for appointing consultants is set out below, and it is the thing most often got wrong.

Before you hire: a consultant is not a dutyholder

This is the part worth reading twice, because getting it wrong leaves the legal duty sitting with you while you believe it has been transferred.

Under regulation 5, the client must appoint a designer with control over the pre-construction phase as principal designer. The principal designer does not have to be carrying out design work on your particular project, but they must be a designer as CDM 2015 defines the term — architects, consulting engineers, quantity surveyors, chartered surveyors, interior designers, temporary works engineers, technicians, or anyone who specifies or alters a design.

A health and safety consultancy that does no design work therefore cannot be your principal designer. It can support one, advise you on your client duties, or work alongside the design team — but the statutory role has to sit with a designer who genuinely controls the pre-construction phase. In practice the lead designer, usually the architect, is best placed, though on services-heavy or structurally complex schemes the engineering lead may be the better fit.

Two arrangements that look compliant and are not

Appointing a CDM consultant as “principal designer” on paper. If they are not a designer with control of the pre-construction phase, the appointment does not do what you think it does. What you have bought is advice, correctly described as adviser to the principal designer — a useful service, but not a discharge of the duty.

Assuming the duty moves with a novation. The principal designer must be appointed by the client. Where an architect’s appointment covering the principal designer role is novated to a design and build contractor, the client is no longer the appointor — so a standalone appointment, or an appointment of the contractor, is needed to stay compliant.

What a CDM consultant does

Used properly, a consultant is genuinely valuable — particularly to clients who build occasionally and carry duties they are not resourced to discharge. Typical services include:

  • Client adviser. Helping you understand and evidence your own duties: making appointments in writing, allowing adequate time and resources, and satisfying yourself that dutyholders are competent.
  • Support to the principal designer. Providing the health and safety expertise a design-led practice may not hold in-house, while the statutory role stays with the designer.
  • Pre-construction information. Assembling what you know about the site and the project into something the design team and contractors can actually use.
  • Reviewing the construction phase plan and the health and safety file for adequacy rather than mere existence.
  • CDM audits. An independent view of where your arrangements stand, with a report setting out what needs to change.
  • F10 notification and the record-keeping that goes with a notifiable project.
  • Training and competence. Identifying what your people need and evidencing that they have it.

Questions worth asking before you appoint

  • Are you a designer as defined by CDM 2015 — and if not, which of our team will hold the principal designer role?
  • Exactly which duties are you discharging, and which remain with us?
  • What is your experience of projects of this type, size and procurement route?
  • What professional indemnity cover do you carry, and does it extend to the CDM services?
  • What will you produce, and when — and will it be usable by our contractors rather than filed away?
  • How will you evidence competence, given clients must now satisfy themselves of it?

Free F10 Notification Checker

Before you commission anyone, establish where your project actually stands. Our free checker applies the CDM 2015 Regulation 6 test, tells you whether the project must be notified to the HSE and why, shows who has to be appointed in writing and on what trigger, and lists the documents the project needs. Printable record at the end, no signup.

Check your CDM position ↗ Free · on envicourse.com

What good CDM compliance is worth

  • Fewer accidents, and less of the delay, sickness absence and disruption that follows them.
  • Lower exposure to enforcement. Compliance does not guarantee you will never face action, but it is the difference between a defensible position and an indefensible one.
  • Buildings that are easier and safer to maintain, repair and clean, because those risks were designed out rather than inherited.
  • A documented trail showing duties were discharged — which is what an HSE inspector, an insurer or a court asks to see.
  • Credibility with clients and principal contractors, who increasingly check CDM arrangements at pre-qualification.

Frequently asked questions

Can our health and safety consultant be the principal designer?

Only if they are a designer as CDM 2015 defines it and have control over the pre-construction phase. A consultancy that provides advice but does no design work cannot properly hold the role, however the appointment is worded. They can act as adviser to whoever does hold it, which is a legitimate and common arrangement — it just needs describing accurately.

Do we still need a CDM Coordinator?

No. The role was abolished by CDM 2015 and replaced by the principal designer. If a supplier is still offering CDM Coordinator services, that is worth querying — the duties are not the same and the appointment requirements are different.

Do we need a consultant at all?

Not necessarily. CDM does not require anyone to appoint a consultant — it requires competent dutyholders. Organisations that build regularly and hold the expertise in-house often need none. The case for one is strongest where you build occasionally, carry client duties you are not resourced to discharge, or have a design team without health and safety depth. Training your own people is frequently the cheaper long-term answer.

What should a CDM consultant cost?

There is no standard rate — fees vary widely by project value, complexity, duration and the scope of services. What matters more than the number is knowing precisely what is included. Ask for a written scope listing the deliverables and which duties remain yours, and compare on that basis rather than on headline price.

CDM Training

Training your own team is often a better long-term investment than ongoing consultancy. Relevant courses include:

Related Content

Envico is an independent training intermediary. We list training courses delivered by accredited providers — we do not provide CDM consultancy services and are not a CDM consultancy. This page is general information about the regulations and how consultancy services work, not legal advice or a recommendation of any particular supplier.