The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) sit at the heart of construction health and safety law in Great Britain, and they appear consistently in APC interviews across a wide range of pathways. Whether you are acting as a contract administrator, employer's agent or project manager, you are likely to occupy a named dutyholder role — and assessors will expect you to explain precisely what that role requires of you in practice.
CDM 2015, enforced by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), applies to virtually all construction projects in Great Britain. Because it creates named legal duties rather than general obligations, assessors can ask targeted questions: "What were your specific duties as designer on this project?" or "Who prepared the Construction Phase Plan and what did it contain?" The regulations also appear across multiple competencies — Health and Safety, Contract Administration and Project Management all touch on them — so the topic recurs in different forms throughout the assessment.
A project is notifiable to the HSE when it exceeds either threshold:
Where notifiable, the client must submit an F10 notification via the HSE's online portal before the construction phase begins. The notification must be updated if key details change. You should be prepared to explain not just the threshold but who is responsible for making the notification and when.