Subcontractor Permits: Who Controls What

Permit control fails most often at an organisational boundary rather than a technical one. The site has a good system, the subcontractor has competent people, and the permit still does not do its job — because each side assumed the other was holding a particular piece of it.

This guide sets out where the boundary actually sits under CDM 2015 and HSE guidance, what each party must do, and the four handover points where control is most commonly lost.

This guide covers UK requirements and references HSE guidance. Legislation and standards may differ in other jurisdictions.

The default division

In almost all cases:

The principal contractor (or site occupier) issues. They hold the overview of what else is happening, control the plant and isolations, and carry the co-ordination duty.
The subcontractor accepts. Their supervisor acts as performing authority, signing to confirm they understand the work, the hazards and the precautions, and have explained them to their people.

Issue does not transfer with the work. A subcontractor who issues their own permits on your site has removed the independent check the permit exists to provide — and the person who knows about the other job in the same zone is on your side of the line, not theirs.

Our guide to who can issue a permit to work covers the roles in more detail.

What CDM 2015 requires

On construction projects the division above is reinforced by regulation.

CDM 2015 regulation 13 requires the principal contractor to "plan, manage and monitor the construction phase and coordinate matters relating to health and safety during the construction phase to ensure that, so far as is reasonably practicable, construction work is carried out without risks to health or safety," and to "organise cooperation between contractors (including successive contractors on the same construction site)."

The parenthesis is easy to skim and matters. Successive contractors — not only those on site simultaneously. A permit closed by one trade can leave a condition the next trade inherits: an isolation still applied, a guard removed, a temporary edge protection arrangement. Co-ordinating that succession is a named duty.

Regulation 15 puts the matching duties on the contractor. They must "plan, manage and monitor construction work carried out either by the contractor or by workers under the contractor's control, to ensure that, so far as is reasonably practicable, it is carried out without risks to health and safety," and where more than one contractor is working on the project, "a contractor must comply with—(a) any directions given by the principal designer or the principal contractor; and (b) the parts of the construction phase plan that are relevant to that contractor's work on the project."

So a permit issued by the principal contractor is a direction the subcontractor must comply with, and the subcontractor retains their own duty to plan and manage the work. Neither duty absorbs the other — accepting a permit does not discharge the subcontractor's obligation to manage their work, and issuing one does not make the principal contractor responsible for how the trade is performed.

What HSE guidance asks of the subcontractor

HSE's HSG250 sets four duties on contractors' and subcontractors' management. They should:

understand the principles of permit-to-work systems as applied in the industry
understand the permit-to-work systems and other arrangements that apply to the particular locations where they or their employees will work
ensure that all performing authorities and permit users are properly trained, and understand the permit system and any specific arrangements for the job, area or location
ensure that up-to-date records of trained performing authorities are kept

The last one is the most useful in practice and the least often asked for. Ask a subcontractor who among their people is trained to accept a permit, and for the record showing it. If they cannot produce it, you do not have a working chain of acceptance — you have signatures from whoever was available.

Put it in the contract rather than discovering it on site.

The four points where control is lost

1. Induction that covers the site but not the permit system

Most inductions cover fire points, welfare and PPE. Fewer cover which work needs a permit here, who to ask, and what the thresholds are.

The subcontractor's supervisor then applies their previous site's thresholds, which may be entirely reasonable and different from yours. Nobody has done anything wrong and the boundary has already moved. Cover permit thresholds explicitly at induction, with the specific list from your permit to work procedure.

2. The subcontractor's own sub-subcontractor

The tier you have a contract with is not always the tier doing the work. A specialist brought in by your subcontractor may never have been inducted, may not appear on any trained-acceptor record, and may be handed a permit by their own client rather than by you.

CDM regulation 13's duty to organise cooperation "between contractors" does not stop at the first tier. Ask, at pre-start, who else will be on site under each subcontractor, and require notice before a further tier arrives.

3. Acceptance treated as a formality

The acceptance signature is meant to confirm understanding and that the information has been explained to all permit users. Where a supervisor signs a stack of permits at the start of a shift, that confirmation has not happened.

The practical control costs forty seconds: ask the acceptor to state the hazards back before they sign. It converts a signature into a briefing, and it surfaces the cases where the wrong person is signing. Our worked permit example shows where this sits in the sequence.

4. Close-out when the trade leaves

One of the most common failures. The subcontractor finishes on Thursday and leaves site. The permit is never handed back, because the person who would hand it back has gone.

HSG250 separates hand-back — the performing authority certifying the work is complete, and the issuing authority certifying the plant is ready for testing and recommissioning — from cancellation, which certifies the plant has been tested and satisfactorily recommissioned. If the subcontractor departs between the two, an isolation may sit applied with nobody accountable.

Two arrangements prevent it: make permit close-out a condition of the subcontractor leaving site, and check open permits against the day's departures. Our permit to work register guide covers making open permits visible enough for that check to be quick.

What to put in the contract

Five clauses, none long:

The subcontractor works under the site permit system and does not operate a parallel one.
Named individuals will act as performing authority, with training records provided before starting.
Notice is required before any further tier of subcontractor comes on site.
Permits must be handed back before leaving site at the end of the works.
The subcontractor's own risk assessments and method statements are provided in advance and referenced on the permit.

The fifth is the one that gets missed. The permit is not the risk assessment — it evidences that controls from the assessment are in place. If you have never seen the subcontractor's assessment, the permit is asserting something you have not checked.

Where the responsibility genuinely sits

A question worth answering plainly, because both sides tend to over-claim in opposite directions.

Issuing a permit does not make you responsible for how the subcontractor performs their trade — regulation 15 keeps that with them. Accepting a permit does not make the subcontractor responsible for site-wide co-ordination — regulation 13 keeps that with the principal contractor.

What issuing does make you responsible for is that the conditions you certified were true: the isolation was applied and proved, the site was examined, interacting work was identified. That is the part of the boundary that is genuinely yours, and it is the part that cannot be delegated to the person doing the work.

The permit to work audit guide covers what an inspector examines where work is subcontracted, and the PTW readiness checker scores your system against the HSG250 essentials.

PermitPad is building a permit-to-work system where acceptance is recorded against a named, trained individual rather than a signature on a page, and open permits are visible against who is still on site. Join the waitlist to see it when it launches.

Key references

HSG250: Guidance on permit-to-work systems — HSE, first edition 2005. Paragraph 36 (contractors' and subcontractors' management), Figure 1 (hand-back and cancellation as separate steps). Guidance, not law
CDM 2015, regulation 13 (SI 2015/51) — the principal contractor's duty to plan, manage and monitor, and to organise cooperation between contractors including successive contractors
CDM 2015, regulation 15 (SI 2015/51) — contractors' duties, including compliance with directions from the principal contractor
CDM 2015, regulation 12 (SI 2015/51) — the health and safety file

Disclaimer

This guide is for general information only. How permit responsibilities divide between parties depends on the contractual arrangements, the project structure and the sector. Always consult a competent H&S professional and the applicable legislation and sector guidance for your circumstances.