CDM 2015 in brief
CDM 2015 applies to construction work in Great Britain and places duties on the people and organisations involved in a project. The emphasis is on planning, managing and monitoring work so that health and safety risks are eliminated or controlled, with information shared between the right people at the right time.
The regulations are deliberately proportionate. The level of documentation should reflect the size and risk of the project. A thick file does not make a project safer, and HSE guidance is clear that paperwork should support the management of risk rather than become the goal.
The dutyholders
- Client: makes suitable arrangements for managing the project, provides pre-construction information and, where there is more than one contractor, appoints a Principal Designer and Principal Contractor.
- Principal Designer: plans, manages and monitors the pre-construction phase, helps the client gather pre-construction information, and prepares the health and safety file.
- Principal Contractor: plans, manages and monitors the construction phase, prepares the construction phase plan, and co-ordinates contractors.
- Designers: eliminate, reduce or control foreseeable risks through design and provide information about the risks that remain.
- Contractors: plan, manage and monitor their own work, and co-operate and share information with others.
On domestic client projects, client duties normally pass to the contractor or Principal Contractor, or to the Principal Designer where there is a written agreement.
The three core documents
Pre-construction information
Information already in the client's possession, or reasonably obtainable, that is relevant to the project: existing surveys, asbestos information, services, ground conditions, site constraints and any existing health and safety file. It is provided to designers and contractors so they can plan properly.
Construction phase plan
Required for every project, and drawn up by the Principal Contractor, or by the contractor where there is only one, before the construction phase begins. It sets out the arrangements for managing health and safety risks during construction and should be reviewed and updated as the work develops.
Health and safety file
Required where there is more than one contractor. It holds information needed to carry out future construction work safely, such as maintenance, alteration or demolition. The Principal Designer prepares it and passes it to the client at the end of the project, or to the Principal Contractor if their appointment ends first.
Where the documentation load sits
The effort is rarely in writing any single document. It is in the flow of information around them. Pre-construction information arrives as scattered surveys, reports and emails. Construction phase plans go out of date as the programme, the supply chain and the site layout change. Information for the health and safety file is created throughout the project, by many different parties, and is often chased at the very end when people have moved on.
This is exactly the kind of collating, cross-checking and updating work that AI handles well.
Where AI helps
Collating pre-construction information
AI can read through surveys, reports and correspondence, extract the information relevant to health and safety, organise it into a structured summary, and flag what appears to be missing, such as no services information or no asbestos survey for a refurbishment.
Drafting and updating construction phase plan sections
Working from your firm's approved plan template, AI can draft project-specific sections using the scope, programme and site information. As things change, it can compare new information against the current plan and highlight the sections that may need revising.
Tracking information for the health and safety file
Rather than leaving the file to the end, AI can log relevant items as they arrive: as-builts, residual risk information from designers, product data and commissioning records. It can map them against the file's agreed contents and show what is outstanding throughout the project.
For projects involving higher-risk buildings, the same discipline supports the golden thread of information required under the Building Safety Act 2022.
What never moves from dutyholders
Important: AI does not hold a CDM duty and cannot discharge one. Judgements about risk, the adequacy of arrangements, co-ordination between parties and approval of documents remain with the dutyholders and their competent people.
A draft construction phase plan written by AI is still the Principal Contractor's plan, and they remain responsible for it being right. The same applies to every document in this article.
Good governance
- Use approved templates and controlled source documents, not open prompts.
- Keep a clear record of who reviewed and approved each output.
- Use business-grade tools with appropriate data protection for project and personal information.
- Make AI flag uncertainty and missing information rather than fill gaps.
- Train the people using it, so review is genuine and not a formality.
Getting access to AI tools is the easy part. The hard part is knowing where AI belongs in CDM workflows, and where it does not, then embedding it so that dutyholders stay in control. Our system and process are built around that, drawn from delivering UK schemes under CDM 2015 ourselves.
If CDM documentation is taking your teams away from managing the work, the AI Opportunity Audit will show where AI can help most in your processes, with a prioritised roadmap for a £1,500 fixed fee. We work with building contractors and civil engineering firms, and our managed AI service can take on compliance checking and records directly, with your competent people reviewing and approving. Book a call to talk it through.