The Competence Declaration: A New Client Duty
- Paul Scanlon
- Jul 30
- 1 min read
There is a new client duty under the Building Safety Act, and most clients have never heard of it.
It is not enough to appoint a competent Principal Designer and Principal Contractor.
You now have to prove how you decided they were competent.
The Building Safety Act sharpened the client's competence duty. Clients must assess the competence of the Principal Designer and Principal Contractor — and demonstrate the basis on which they made that judgement.
The assessment is the easy part. The evidence is what people are missing.
"They have done good work for us before" is not a competence assessment. Neither is a logo on a tender or a certificate on file.
You need a defensible record: what you checked, what you reviewed, and why it satisfied you for this project specifically.
If the Regulator or your insurer asked you to show how you determined competence on your last appointment, could you produce it today?
This is a genuinely new obligation, and one of the most overlooked client duties under the current regime.
How are you currently recording the basis for your competence decisions — or are you?
Get your free Client Guide to CDM 2015 here: cdm2015.co.uk/resource-download
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