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What goes into pre-construction information
The definition, what a proportionate pack actually contains, and how ClearCDM assembles one for a small project without sending anybody a fifty question form.
Short answer
Pre-construction information is the health and safety information about a project that the client already holds or can reasonably obtain, provided to every designer and contractor who needs it. HSE guidance sets three tests for it: relevant to the particular project, at an appropriate level of detail, and proportionate to the risks involved. It is what designers design around and what contractors price, programme and plan from, and under regulation 12(3) it is the raw material for the construction phase plan.
What the regulations require
Regulation 4(4) of CDM 2015 requires the client to provide pre-construction information as soon as is practicable to every designer and contractor appointed or being considered. Regulation 11(6) requires the principal designer to assist the client in doing that, and to provide the information promptly and in a convenient form to every designer and contractor.
HSE's guidance on the Regulations, L153, adds the substance. It defines pre-construction information as information about the project already in the client's possession or reasonably obtainable by or on behalf of the client, and says that when complete it must include proportionate information about the project, the planning and management of the project, the health and safety hazards of the site including design and construction hazards and how they will be addressed, and anything relevant in an existing health and safety file.
Two lines in that guidance do most of the work in practice. The first is that the information should be gathered and added to as the design progresses, because preliminary information gathered at the start is unlikely to be sufficient. The second is that it should be in a convenient form and be clear, concise and easily understandable. A document nobody reads has not discharged anything.
The real problem on a small project
It is almost never that the information does not exist. It is that it is in six places and nobody has ever put it in one.
The client knows the building leaks somewhere near the chimney and that the neighbour's side return is used every morning. The architect holds the survey and the drawings. The structural engineer knows which wall is doing the work and what has to be propped before it comes out. The asbestos survey is in an email from the purchase in 2011. The contractor has not been appointed yet, so nobody has asked how the skip is getting in. Each of those people answers questions willingly when asked the right one. Very few of them will read a twenty page questionnaire written for someone else's job.
How ClearCDM builds it
- Client information
What you know about the building, how the property is used and occupied during the works, access, neighbours, and what paperwork you hold from earlier work or from the purchase.
- Designer information
A separate short form for each designer, asking for their drawings and the risks their design creates and leaves behind, in whatever format they already keep it. Ten minutes for most projects.
- The site visit
One visit to record the building as it is. Drawings show intent; a visit shows the meter position, the fragile roof, the party wall condition and the fact that the only access is through the kitchen.
- Existing records
Asbestos surveys, structural information, drainage and services records, any health and safety file from earlier work on the building.
- The gaps, named
What is missing, who can supply it, and what should be commissioned. Named gaps are worth more to a contractor than a confident sentence that turns out to be a guess.
- Review by a person
Someone reads all of it against the design and the site, and decides what actually matters for this project.
- The pack, issued
Out to everyone pricing and everyone building, with the information register alongside it so the open items stay visible.
What a proportionate pack covers
Not every project needs every heading below, and saying so is the point. These are the categories we work through, keeping the ones that are live on your project.
| Heading | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Project description | What is being built, the key dates, and who is on the team |
| Existing building and site | Age, construction, condition, what is known and what is assumed |
| Existing records | Surveys, drawings, previous health and safety file, warranties |
| Asbestos | The position for a building of asbestos age: survey, findings, or the fact that neither exists yet |
| Structure | What is loadbearing, what is being removed, what needs temporary support |
| Services | Incoming supplies, meter positions, buried and concealed runs, isolation points |
| Access and logistics | How people, materials and waste get in and out, and past what |
| Neighbours and the public | Adjoining occupiers, shared access, party wall interfaces, pavements and footpaths |
| Occupation during the works | Whether anyone is living or working in the building while it is being built on |
| Fire and emergency | Escape while the building is opened up, and how emergency services reach the site |
| Ground conditions | Where excavation, underpinning or a basement is involved |
| Design hazards | The risks the design creates and could not eliminate, and how each is to be handled |
| Temporary works | Propping, needling, scaffold interfaces, and who is designing them |
| Sequencing and interfaces | Where one trade's work makes another's dangerous |
| Client arrangements | How the project is being managed, and by whom |
| Health and safety file | What the project is expected to leave behind for the building |
Proportionate to the project and its risks. On a straightforward rear extension roughly half of these are a sentence each and several do not apply at all.
A worked example: a Victorian rear extension
A fictional project, put together from the ordinary shape of this work rather than from any client's file. Three people answer three different forms. Nobody writes a document.
| Who | What they were asked | What it turned into |
|---|---|---|
| The homeowner | Will anyone be living here during the works, what do you hold about the building, and how do materials reach the back garden | The family stays in the front of the house throughout; a 2011 homebuyer report mentions a suspected asbestos insulating board panel in the boiler cupboard; the only route to the rear is through the side return shared with number 42 |
| The architect | Which existing elements are being removed or opened up, and what does the design leave behind that cannot be designed out | Full width opening into the existing rear wall; original lath and plaster ceilings remain overhead in the adjoining rooms; the flat roof is at first floor window level, so anyone on it is beside an opening window |
| The structural engineer | What is loadbearing, what has to be propped, and what is your sequence | Two storey loadbearing rear wall; needling and propping to a specified sequence before the steel goes in; a maximum unsupported length that the drawings alone would not tell a builder |
The pack that comes out of that is four things a contractor can act on before they price: the house is occupied and the side return is shared, so protection and hours matter; there is a suspected asbestos containing material and a survey is needed before the boiler cupboard is touched; the propping sequence is not optional and is somebody's named responsibility; and the new flat roof is a fall risk next to an opening window that the design cannot remove, so it needs an edge treatment or a rule. None of that comes out of a template.
Where it goes next
Pre-construction information is not the end of a chain, it is the start of one. Regulation 12(3) makes the principal designer hand it to the principal contractor for the construction phase plan, and the health and safety file at the end becomes pre-construction information for whoever works on the building next.
Common questions
Who prepares the pre-construction information?
The duty to provide it sits with the client under regulation 4(4). On a project with more than one contractor the principal designer must assist the client in gathering it and getting it to the designers and contractors who need it, under regulation 11(6). On a domestic project the client duties move under regulation 7.
Does a house extension need pre-construction information?
Yes, in proportion. The obligation is to provide information relevant to the project at an appropriate level of detail and proportionate to the risks, not to produce a long document. For a rear extension that is usually a short pack about the existing building, the access, the neighbours, the services and the risks the design leaves.
What is the difference between pre-construction information and a construction phase plan?
Pre-construction information describes what is known about the project and the site before construction. The construction phase plan is the contractor's document setting out how they will run the site safely. Regulation 12(3) requires the principal designer to give the principal contractor the information they need to write it.
Is a template pre-construction information document acceptable?
A template can be a starting structure. It stops being useful when the content is generic, because the point of the document is to tell the people pricing and building the job the things that are specific to this building and this site.
Sources
- CDM 2015, regulation 4: client duties in relation to managing projects legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, regulation 11: duties of a principal designer legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, regulation 12: construction phase plan and health and safety file legislation.gov.uk
- Managing health and safety in construction, L153, Appendix 2 HSE guidance on the Regulations
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