Suitable, sufficient and competent

In the 1994 and 2007 CDM Regulations there was an express requirement that the duty holders (excluding the client) under the Regulations had to be competent. Demonstrating and assessing competence generated its own industry, and the Health and Safety Executive (‘the Executive’), in an attempt to reduce the attendant bureaucracy, omitted from the Regulations a requirement, or threshold, for competence.

The test of competence that created an excessive bureaucratic response as a result of appointers checking corporate competence and the competence of individuals in the workforce has been replaced by regulation 8(1), which refers to skills, knowledge, experience and organisational capability, if relevant, in the following terms as a general duty: