Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 1994: The pre-tender stage health and safety plan
(Series: HSE information sheet; Construction Sheet No 42)
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Introduction
This information sheet gives guidance on the pre-tender stage health and safety plan which is required under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 1994 (CDM Regulations).

The CDM Regulations place duties on all those who can contribute to the health and safety of a construction project. Duties are placed upon clients, designers, contractors and the Regulations create a new duty holder - the planning supervisor. They also introduce new documents - health and safety plans and the health and safety file.

The client has to appoint:

a planning supervisor to co-ordinate and manage health and safety during the design and early stages of preparation; and

a principal contractor to co-ordinate and manage health and safety issues during the construction work.
One of the duties placed on the planning supervisor is to ensure that a pre-tender stage health and safety plan is prepared before arrangements are made for the principal contractor to carry out or manage construction work. The principal contractor is then required to develop the health and safety plan before work starts on site and keep it up to date throughout the construction phase. Further information on the health and safety plan during the construction phase is given in Construction Information Sheet No 43.

The degree of detail required in the pre-tender stage health and safety plan and the time and effort involved in preparing it should be in proportion to the nature, size and level of health and safety risks involved in the project. Projects involving minimal risks will call for straightforward plans. Large projects or those involving significant risks will require more detail.

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What is the pre-tender stage health and safety plan?
The pre-tender stage health and safety plan is essentially a collection of information about the significant health and safety risks of the construction project which the principal contractor will have to manage during the construction phase.

The information in the pre-tender stage health and safety plan will mainly come from:

the client, who has to provide information relevant to health and safety to the planning supervisor. This could include existing drawings, surveys of the site or premises; information on the location of services, etc; and

designers, who have to provide information about the risks which cannot be avoided and will have to be controlled by the principal contractor and other contractors. Typically this information may be provided on drawings, in written specifications or in outline method statements.

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What is the purpose of the pre-tender stage health and safety plan?
The pre-tender stage health and safety plan serves three main purposes:

During its development the plan can provide a focus at which the health and safety considerations of design are brought together under the control of the planning supervisor.

Secondly, the plan plays a vital role in the tender documentation. It enables prospective principal contractors to be fully aware of the project's health and safety and welfare requirements. This will allow prospective principal contractors to have a level playing field as far as health and safety is concerned on which to provide tender submissions.

Thirdly, the plan provides a template against which different tender submissions can be measured. This helps the planning supervisor to advise the client on the provision of resources for health and safety and to assess the competence of prospective principal contractors.

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Who prepares the pre-tender stage health and safety plan?
The planning supervisor is responsible for ensuring that the pre-tender stage health and safety plan is prepared. This does not mean that the planning supervisor must produce the plan directly, but the planning supervisor must ensure that it is prepared.

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What should go in a pre-tender stage health and safety plan?

The contents of the pre-tender stage health and safety plan will depend on the nature of the project itself.

However, the following areas should be considered:

Nature of the project (location, nature of construction work, etc).

The existing environment (existing services, surrounding land use, ground conditions, etc).

Existing drawings (available drawings of the structure and the health and safety file if there is one).

The design (information on the significant risks which cannot be avoided).

Construction materials (health hazards from construction materials which cannot be avoided).

Site-wide elements (positioning of site access or egress points, location of unloading, layout and storage areas, traffic routes, etc).

Overlap with the client's undertaking (particularly where construction work is to take place at the client's premises).

Site rules (could include emergency procedures, permit-to-work rules, etc laid down by the client when work takes place at the client's premises).

Continuing liaison (procedures for dealing with design work prepared for the construction phase).
For projects where a significant amount of design work will be prepared as construction proceeds, specific arrangements for dealing with this work may need to be set out in the pre-tender stage health and safety plan. This is important to ensure that the health and safety aspects of the design work are considered and dealt with properly by designers and the planning supervisor during the construction phase. This will particularly occur under the various design and build and management contracting forms of procurement.

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What format should the pre-tender stage health and safety plan be in?
If the pre-tender stage health and safety plan is to be effective in helping to select a principal contractor, the planning supervisor and any other professional advisers who put together the tender documentation will need to determine what is the most suitable format for the plan.

Clearly the way the pre-tender stage health and safety plan is included in the tender documentation and is structured is essential if responses on health and safety are to be made by prospective principal contractors. The pre-tender stage health and safety plan does not have to be a separate document. If the project is a large and complex one, a separate document which ensures that the key information is highlighted, makes sense. However, on small projects, some of the information outlined in the section What should go in a pre-tender stage health and safety plan? will already be in existing tender documentation. In this case, the key information can be highlighted in a covering letter or by use of an index pointing to which information should be considered.

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