CDM Audit

First of all, an effective CDM Audit relies upon the need for an appropriately competent person to listen ~ to the organisation that needs to try to initially articulate what they perceive to be their situation and how it has got to a point of concern.   This will indicate the first stage in the process …

• To test for evidence that Management takes an interest and assumes accountability
• To ensure the Procuring Client Management will establish a CDM culture and safety philosophy and will establish safety goals or targets.   Goal setting is part of the Client’s statutory obligations to comply with CDM 2007
• To see how the Procuring Client Management ensure the goals are taken throughout the whole procurement process

It must of course be possible to measure if the targets are being met or not anywhere along the procurement chain …

Next, there are procedures to be tested, established, or corrected.   These include:

• CDM documentation control
• procedures for all safety critical activities
• procedures for auditing and reporting
• competent people are employed for all the tasks
• audits are carried out and results are measured

Finally, Management review is periodically held to evaluate the safety performance and, if necessary, means and ways of improvement are decided upon and implemented …

However, there are a couple of additions necessary to make a proper CDM Safety Management System that the CDM Audit will be looking for

Risk analysis is important.

Activities should be analysed with regard to risk and how risk could be minimised within reasonable limits

A continual process of learning from one's own and other’s errors and successes is also important

Thus, in terms of the organisation, a CDM Safety Management System for CDM compliance may be thought of as a continuous never-ending process with a feed-back loop.   It starts with standards, has adequate infrastructure, procedures and competency, runs the process and gets results

The CDM Audit will need to look at the infrastructure, procedures and competency and processes against the standards, and measure the results

The results of the CDM Audit and the measurements made must be analysed and properly understood or explained, then lessons can be learned and suggested corrective/preventive actions fed back into the system

Now, the audit trail doesn’t just end there ... competent and capable organisations are built out of competent and capable folks!   On page 13 of the Approved Code of Practice to the CDM Regulations 2007, we find the simple message ”The right information for the right people at the right time” just about sums it up ...

So, who are these ”right people” who could be considered competent and capable to be the CDM Auditors the industry will need?

CDM2007.org do not offer a CDM Audit service but, David Jones, our Editor-in-Chief of CDM2007.org would like to hear from you if you consider you are a competent and capable professional and would be interested to be considered to offer your expertise to assist organisations within our CDM community to conduct their own CDM Audits against reliable benchmarks.   If you are interested please send an email to info@cdm2007.org with your details ... let’s make it happen ...

Ed.