Duties of Client
Introduction
Clients have a major role to play in the promotion of a systematic approach to the management
of construction. They will set the tone of the project and make decisions crucial to its development.
They mobilizes the sufficient time and resources.
The client is the person for whom the project is carried out. In the case of notifiable projects,
clients must appoint a Principal Designer and a Principal Contractor. Those clients without
construction expertise must rely on the advice of professional experts on how best to meet their
duties, but both the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor will need the clients support and
input to be able to carry out their work effectively. The client remains responsible for ensuring that
client duties are met.
Deciding who the Client is
In some instances it may be unclear who the client is. To avoid confusion, this must be resolved
at an early stage. The following factors will need to be taken into account.
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Who ultimately decides what is to be constructed, where, when, and by whom?
Who is at the head of the procurement chain?
Who arranges for the design work?
Who engages the contractor?
Who initiates the work?
Duties of Client - Checklist
The main duties of the client on all construction projects are to:
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Ensure that suitable management arrangements are made for the project
Select & appoint a competent and resourced Principal Designer.
Select & appoint a competent and resourced Principal contractor.
Notify the relevant enforcing authority of certain projects (notifiable).
Ensure sufficient time and resources are allowed for all stages of the project.
Provide the pre-construction information (PCI) to the designers and contractors.
Verify the sufficiency of the construction phase plan (CPP) prior to construction
commencement.
Verify that suitable welfare facilities are in place prior to construction commencement.
Contractor training - Ensure the necessary information, instruction and training is received
and appropriate supervision is provided to comply with the regulations.
Ensure co-operation and co-ordination between the client's employees and client
contractors with the project contractors where the client's work activities overlap the
construction work and to enable others to perform their duties.
Subsequent to receipt of the health and safety file from the Principal Designer, maintain
the information up to date and provide access to any person who needs to see it for health
and safety purposes.
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Management arrangements
The client has a key influence on the outcome of a construction project because the project is
originated by the client, often the client sets the overall programme and the client pays for the
work to be executed. Clients should set the ground rules for health and safety even though the
extent of their involvement in the project will not depend upon their own knowledge and
experience of construction processes.
Large clients may have their own comprehensive in-house design team, and even their own direct
labour contracting team. There is nothing to prevent such clients using these resources to provide
the roles of Lead Designer, designer or principal contractor providing they are competent to do
the work in accordance with the regulations. Smaller clients will need to buy-in the expertise they
need and may need to seek professional advice on the competence of appointments they make.
On all projects the client must verify that adequate management arrangements are in place to
ensure that the roles, functions and responsibilities of all members of the project team are clear
and understood. The organisations and individuals working on the project should know their roles,
responsibilities and authorities and their relationship with other members of the team.
This will include:
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checking that there is good co-operation and communication between designers and
contractors;
checking that there is adequate protection for the client's workers and/or members of the
public;
checking to make sure that adequate welfare facilities have been provided by the
contractor; and
checking that the arrangements which the contractor agreed to make to control key risks
on site have been implemented.
On notifiable projects the Client is required to notify the relevant authority involve design audits
and site inspections and audits. On non-notifiable projects the client will either have to perform
these checks themselves or obtain this assistance from others, which may be a person or
organisation who has the competence to act in this role, for example the principal designer or
principal contractor or a third party with relevant knowledge and expertise.
Time and resources
The regulations also require the client to allow sufficient time and other resources for all parties
involved to fulfil their health and safety responsibilities. On notifiable projects, the principal
designer's advice will be crucial in deciding the timescales. On non-notifiable projects the client
still needs to seek advice on the time and resources proposed to be allocated to the different
phases of a project. However, if a client imposes unrealistic time constraints because of
commercial pressure the whole project will be flawed at the outset from a health and safety point
of view.
The client must allow sufficient time for the design, design reviews, planning, hazard identification,
risk assessment, specification of risk control measures, selection of contractors, mobilisation,
sequencing and scheduling of work, and carrying out construction. Consideration must be given
to contingencies (e.g. refurbishment in a building known to have contained asbestos where
pockets might still remain, in that only an Asbestos Management Survey has been performed).
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Pre-construction information
The client must provide information regarding the project, site and other relevant issues to the
designers and contractors on all projects. This information will be included within the 'preconstruction information' sometimes referred to as the PCI. This information will be useful for the
designers in their attempts to eliminate or reduce risks by their design decisions, for tendering
contractors to properly evaluate the work and the associated risks and the contractors performing
the work in their management of health and safety on the site.
The client must make this information available early enough for the designers to assess the
information for the elimination and reduction of risk by design.
The client must provide all the information in his/her possession that pertains to the site and any
other information that could be reasonably obtained. This information should be supplied as soon
as possible in the project to enable the designers to take the information into account when
making their design and planning decisions. Some of this information would also be supplied to
tendering contractors so that they can take this into account when tendering for the work, or allow
the construction team, in a situation where tenders are not required, to effectively plan the
construction work.
The pre-construction information may be discrete pieces of information in the form of drawings,
reports, surveys, etc, either in electronic or hard copy format, with an index provided to all of the
project team so that the information available is known to all.
Pre-construction information is defined as information about the project that is already in the
client's possession or which is reasonably obtainable by or on behalf of the client. The information
must:
a. be relevant to the particular project;
b. have an appropriate level of detail; and
c. be proportionate given the health or safety risks involved.
Ensure co-operation and co-ordination
The client shall establish arrangements for confirming the adequate co-operation and coordination between all members of the project team. This is effectively performed by the Principal
Designer and the Principal Contractor and the client may just monitor their performances.
On all projects the client will need to be intimately involved in the project design and the project
construction processes in order to confirm that the various parties are co-operating with each
other and co-ordinating their designs and/or construction activities to comply with the legislation
and produce an efficient and effective project.
Where the client cannot, or is unwilling to, cease his normal work activities while construction
work takes place on the site, an interface problem can arise. This interface problem may cause
the client's employees being put at risk by the construction work and, more rarely, construction
workers being put at risk by the client's activities. In these cases the client must provide the
management and co-ordination requirements as part of the 'pre-construction information' and
liaise closely with the contractors to ensure that the co-ordination is effective during the
construction phase.
As construction work develops and changes from day to day the health and safety management
arrangements, as contained within the construction phase plan on notifiable projects, may need
frequent adjustment. On-going cooperation and co-ordination will be needed at each phase,
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possibly requiring regular meetings involving the client and contractors' on-site management.
Each party is responsible for briefing its own staff on co-ordination requirements and the
precautions to be taken. This will be very important where constant re-routing of traffic and
pedestrians is necessary. Whenever possible, construction work should be completely separated
off from the client's work activities.
Appoint the Principal Designer and the Principal Contractor
A key part of the client's role on notifiable projects is to appoint a competent principal designer
and competent principal contractor. The principal designer will oversee the design and planning
of a project and assist the client in the performance of the client's duties. The principal contractor
is responsible for managing the health and safety aspects of the construction.
The principal designer should be appointed as soon as possible after commencement of the initial
design. The principal contractor should be appointed as soon as the client knows enough about
the project to select a suitable contractor, so that they can make contributions to the health and
safety of the design. Only one principal designer and one principal contractor may be appointed
to the project at any one time, although the appointments may be changed.
On non-notifiable projects the client still has duties to perform under the regulations. The client
may well have formal arrangements in place with the principal designer and principal contractor
which state how the project is to be managed and subsequent duties discharged.
The Construction Phase Plan
On all projects the client must ensure that the construction phase plan is sufficiently developed
by the principal contractor prior to allow the construction to commence. For the construction phase
plan to be considered to be sufficiently developed it must contain the health and safety
management systems and arrangements for the specific project and site(s) and the risk
assessments and method statements for the initial work activities.
All projects involving demolition or sites or activities involving high levels of risk it is recommended
that a written plan, approximating the construction phase plan should be produced and reviewed.
The principal designer will assist the client in assessing the construction phase plan prior to
construction commencement.
The construction phase plan must record the arrangements for managing the significant health
and safety risks associated with the construction phase of a project. It is the basis for
communicating these arrangements to all those involved in the construction phase so it should
be easy to understand and be as simple as possible.
In considering what information is included, the emphasis is that it:
a. is relevant to the project;
b. has sufficient detail to clearly set out the arrangements, site rules and special measures
needed to manage the construction phase; but
c. is still proportionate to the scale and complexity of the project and the risks involved.
The plan should NOT include documents that get in the way of a clear understanding of what is
needed to manage the construction phase, such as generic risk assessments, records of how
decisions were reached or detailed safety method statements.
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