Construction phase plans, written from the project pack.
CDM 2015 requires a construction phase plan on every project, before the construction phase starts. Ramsgen writes it from your pre-construction information, section by section, and marks every site-specific line with the page it came from.
How Ramsgen writes one
Upload the pre-construction information and drawings to a project. Each section of the plan starts from a standard structure, and the project's requirements are worked through it. Every line that came from the pack is highlighted with the requirement behind it and its page. Anything the pack doesn't answer is left as a question for you.
Construction phase plans are on the Professional plan, £99 a month for 2 seats, and on Principal. Every plan is on the pricing page.
What a construction phase plan has to contain
CDM 2015 doesn't prescribe a format. Regulation 12 requires the plan to set out the health and safety arrangements and site rules for the construction phase, and Appendix 3 of the HSE's guidance, L153, lists what it should cover.
In practice that is five things. The project: the description, the client, the programme and who is doing what. How the site is managed: planning, supervision, communication, and how people who arrive later are briefed. The site rules you will enforce on this job. The arrangements for the significant risks, for example how this excavation is supported, who inspects it and what stops work. And welfare, in place before work starts.
Where the work includes any of the high-risk activities listed in Schedule 3 of the regulations, such as work near high-voltage power lines, work with a risk of burial or of falling from height, or work in wells and tunnels, the plan must set out the specific measures for it.
Length is not the test. Someone who wasn't involved in writing the plan should be able to read it and see what was decided for this job, and why.
Who has to produce one
The principal contractor, or the contractor where there is only one. A principal contractor has to be appointed whenever more than one contractor will work on the project. On domestic projects the same rules apply, and the client's duties pass to the contractor or principal contractor.
How a CPP differs from a RAMS
The construction phase plan is the principal contractor's plan for the whole site. A RAMS is one contractor's method for one activity on it. The plan sets the site rules and arrangements that every RAMS has to work within, and a project needs both.
Small projects
A construction phase plan is required on every project, whatever its size or value, including domestic work and jobs with a single contractor. What changes is how much it needs to say. The plan should be proportionate to the risks the job actually carries.