What the law actually says
Under UK health and safety law, duties are shared, not transferred. Contractors are responsible for how they carry out their work safely, but the organisation engaging them remains responsible for managing the risks created by the workplace and the overall work activity.
Put simply:
🟠If a contractor is harmed because of a hazard on your site that you knew about, or failed to communicate, that rests with you.
🟠If multiple contractors are working alongside each other and nobody is coordinating the risks they create for one another, that's your gap to close.
Responsibility for contractor health and safety remains with the organisation engaging them and failing to meet those duties can lead to enforcement action regardless of what the contractor's own arrangements look like.
CDM 2015 made this explicit for construction projects, deliberately moving away from placing responsibility solely on the contractor. Where more than one contractor is involved, a Principal Contractor must be appointed, taking on specific legal duties for the construction phase. But the principle extends well beyond CDM - it applies any time an outside worker sets foot in your workplace.
Where it goes wrong
The failures that appear most often in HSE investigations follow a familiar pattern:
- Contractors weren't briefed on site-specific hazards (they were handed a generic induction pack that didn't reflect the actual risks).
- Nobody checked whether they were genuinely competent for the specific task, rather than just experienced in the general field.
- Visiting contractors - delivery drivers, maintenance engineers, one-off trades - received the least briefing and faced the most unfamiliar risks.
The more complex the work and the more contractors involved, the wider the gap tends to be between what businesses think their arrangements cover and what they actually do.
Where to start - have you covered the basics?
Contractor management boils down to these core practises - matching the level of oversight to the level of risk, making sure site-specific hazards are communicated clearly, and satisfying yourself that the people doing the work are actually competent to do it safely.
When did you last look at how your contractor arrangements actually work in practice?
If contractor management is something you haven't reviewed recently, these HSE resources are a useful starting point:
📄 Using Contractors: A Brief Guide (INDG368) : HSE's core guidance for employers who use contractors. Covers selecting a suitable contractor, assessing risks, providing information, and where responsibility lies. Free to download.
📄 Managing Contractors: A Guide for Employers (HSG159) : A more detailed guide with practical checklists to help you assess your current approach. Useful for businesses with regular or complex contractor activity.
📄 CDM 2015 — Roles and Responsibilities : If your contractor activity involves construction work, this is the essential reference. Covers duties for clients, principal contractors, designers and contractors, with a clear summary of who is responsible for what.
📄 CDM 2015 — Summary of Duties for Dutyholders : A concise breakdown of what each dutyholder must do under CDM. A good first check if you're not sure whether CDM applies to your project or what it requires of you.
👉 Not sure whether your current arrangements would stand up to scrutiny? We're happy to work through it with you.