It is required on every project, not just the big ones
This is the one most small firms have backwards, so here it is in HSE's words rather than ours. From CIS80, HSE's own busy-builder sheet:
Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) a construction phase plan is required for every construction project. This does not need to be complicated.
Every project. A kitchen. A chimney breast removal. A dormer. A loft conversion. Not just the ones you notify.
The second half of that quote matters as much as the first. It does not need to be complicated, and a twelve-page document with a colour cover is not more compliant than one page that answers the questions honestly.
The structure here is HSE's, deliberately
Plan, Working together, Organise: CIS80's three sections, in its order, asking its questions. A neater arrangement was available and would have been a mistake.
An inspector, a principal contractor or a client's surveyor recognises this shape. A document that reads like the sheet they already know is worth more than one that reads better, because the question they are answering is "has this been thought about", and a familiar shape answers it faster.
CIS80 is Crown copyright under the Open Government Licence, so the structure is free to follow. The suggested control wording is ours, not HSE's, and it is a starting point rather than an answer.
It checks whether this format is right before it produces anything
CIS80 sets its own limit, and quoting it matters, because it is the regulator ruling on the format this tool produces. A job over 500 person days, or over 30 working days with more than 20 people on site at the same time, must be notified to HSE and is, in HSE's words, likely to be too complex for the simple plan format.
So the tool asks how long the job is and how many people are on it, works out whether either threshold is crossed, and if it is, refuses to produce the plan and tells you to notify on form F10 instead.
That is HSE's judgement pointed straight at our own product, which is the most useful thing we can do with it. A tool that cheerfully hands you a document the regulator has already called the wrong shape is worse than one that stops.
Note the days-and-people test needs both limbs. Forty days with five people is not notifiable. Ten days with forty people is not either. It is long and busy that does it, or the person-day total on its own.
One honest caveat about person days
The real figure is the sum of a varying daily headcount across the programme. A form with two number boxes can only estimate it, from a typical headcount times working days. So anything within striking distance of 500 gets a warning rather than a clean pass: work it out properly before relying on being under.
Naming a danger without a control is worse than not listing it
Mark asbestos as present and leave the control box empty, and the plan now records that you knew asbestos was a danger on this site and wrote down nothing about it. That is not a gap, it is an admission.
So marking a danger opens its control box, with suggested wording pre-filled as somewhere to start. The panel names any box left blank, and the PDF prints NOT RECORDED in the control column rather than leaving a tidy-looking space.
The last heading on the list is "other dangers on this site" and it is the only one with no suggestion, because it is the only one nobody but you can write. It is also the field that turns this from a template into a plan.
Schedule 3, and the item that catches steel
Schedule 3 of CDM 2015 lists ten categories of work involving particular risks, and the plan must include specific measures for any that apply.
Read as published, the list defeats itself for a small firm. Tunnels. Caissons with a compressed air atmosphere. Divers with an air supply. Explosives. A fabricator scans it, concludes none of this is anything to do with him, and misses item 10: assembly or dismantling of heavy prefabricated components.
Which is erecting steelwork. Hanging a pair of automated gates. Setting a balustrade run. Craning in a canopy frame. It is squarely Schedule 3 work and almost nobody who does it knows that.
So this tool puts the three categories most likely to catch a small fabrication or groundworks firm at the top of the list, falls and earthfalls, high voltage lines, and heavy prefabricated components, and hides the divers behind a button.
What the client told you, in writing
Asbestos. Where the gas runs. Which wall is load bearing. Whether the neighbour has right of access. All of it is the client's to disclose, and none of it is worth anything as a conversation on a doorstep.
Writing it into the plan turns it into their answer rather than your assumption, and on a 1960s house where nobody has ever done a survey, that distinction is the difference between a delay and a disaster.
The phase plan sets up the site, the rest cover the tasks
The phase plan sets up the site. The induction recordis how people find out what is in it. The risk assessment and RAMS cover the individual tasks, and a lift plan covers anything going up on a hook.
Nothing here is uploaded and nothing survives closing the tab, so download the PDF before you shut it.
Common questions
Do I really need a construction phase plan for a small job?
Yes. HSE says it plainly in its own busy-builder sheet CIS80: under CDM 2015 a construction phase plan is required for every construction project, and it does not need to be complicated. A bathroom needs one. This is the fact most small firms have backwards: they assume the plan is for big notifiable jobs only.
Who has to write it?
If you are the only contractor, you do, before the site is set up. If there is more than one contractor, the principal contractor draws it up and keeps it, and everyone else works to the parts that apply to them. The tool asks which you are and tells you where that leaves you.
What changes on a domestic job?
The client duties do not disappear, they move. Working as the only contractor for a domestic client, you pick up the client duties as well as your own. HSE adds that this should involve doing no more than you would normally do to comply with health and safety law. With several contractors on a domestic project, those duties pass to the principal contractor.
Why did it refuse to produce a plan for my job?
Because the job is notifiable, and that is HSE’s call rather than ours. CIS80 says a job over 500 person days, or over 30 working days with more than 20 people on site at once, must be notified on form F10 and is likely to be too complex for the simple plan format. Rather than hand you a document HSE has already said is the wrong shape, the tool stops and says so.
What is Schedule 3 and why is it in a different order here?
Schedule 3 of CDM 2015 lists ten categories of work involving particular risks, and the plan must include specific measures for any that apply. The list runs through tunnels, caissons, divers and explosives, so a small firm reads it and concludes none of it is relevant, and misses item 10, assembly or dismantling of heavy prefabricated components, which covers erecting steelwork, hanging gates and setting balustrade runs. This tool puts the three most likely to catch a small firm at the top.
Is the suggested control wording HSE’s?
No. CIS80 is Crown copyright published under the Open Government Licence and this tool follows its structure and its questions, which is the useful part. The control wording is ours, and it is a starting point meant to be edited into something true about your site rather than shipped as written.