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What goes in a site file?

The site file is the paperwork a managed site runs on, kept where the site is run: the cabin, or the tablet that has replaced it. It is not the health and safety file, which is the handover document for the building, and it is not the construction phase plan, though the plan sits in it. It is the evidence, day by day, that the plan was followed: who was here, what they were told, what was checked, what arrived, what went wrong, and what was done about it.

Written from the side of the desk that audits them, here is what a site file needs and why.

Why the file matters more than the plan

A construction phase plan says what will happen. An inspector, an auditor, a client's advisor or a solicitor three years later wants to know what did happen, on a given day, and who can say so. The plan cannot answer that. The signing-in sheet for that day can. So can the diary, the RAMS briefing record with the operative's signature on it, and the permit that was open at the time.

That is the test for every form in the file: on the day it matters, does this sheet answer the question that will be asked.

The nine sections

The sections below are the shape most principal contractors' files take. The order is roughly the order the questions come in.

  1. People on site. The signing-in and attendance sheet for every day, the visitor register with the briefing they acknowledged, the running induction register that indexes the individual induction records, the training and competence matrix with card expiry dates, and the fit-to-work declarations held apart from the rest because they carry personal data.
  2. Subcontractor control. The contractor competence check made before the order was placed, the pre-start meeting record, the RAMS review sheet with the reasons a document was returned, the RAMS briefing record signed by the people doing the work, the observation cards from the walk-round, and the site instructions and stop-work notices.
  3. The plan and the arrangements. The current construction phase plan, the site rules as displayed, the traffic plan, the emergency arrangements, the fire plan.
  4. Daily running. The site diary, one page per day, and the start-of-shift check. The verbal instruction confirmations. The delivery record, the plant register, the temporary works register, the services isolation register, the key register.
  5. Permits and high-risk controls. The permit register and every permit issued, with the isolation certificates and the fire watch certificates behind them.
  6. Inspections. The scaffold register, the excavation inspections, the weekly site inspection, the plant pre-use checks, the temporary electrics and fire equipment records, and the action register that closes what they find.
  7. Incidents. The accident book, one entry per sheet. The incident and near-miss reports, the investigation records with corrective actions, and the RIDDOR decision for each, whichever way it went.
  8. Environment and neighbours. The waste transfer log with every note reference, the fuel and spill log, and the noise, dust and vibration monitoring against the hours and conditions the site was permitted.
  9. Meetings and close. The progress and health-and-safety meeting records, which are the consultation evidence, the drawing and document register showing the current revision of everything, and at the end, the demobilisation checklist and the receipt for the health and safety file.

What the law actually requires

Most of the file is not a statutory form. The duties are general: CDM 2015 regulation 13 makes the principal contractor responsible for planning, managing and monitoring the construction phase and for controlling who is on site; regulation 15 puts the same on a contractor for their own work; regulation 14 requires the workforce to be consulted. The file is how a site shows it did those things.

A few sheets do have a statutory form or period behind them. The accident book comes from the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979, one entry per sheet since data protection law, kept three years. Scaffold and excavation inspection reports have contents set by the Work at Height Regulations and CDM. Waste transfer notes are kept two years under the duty of care, hazardous consignment notes three. RIDDOR reports have timescales. Everything else is kept for the life of the contract and the limitation period after it, six years for a simple contract and twelve for a deed, because the claim comes later than the inspection.

The two mistakes

The first is the file that is a box of delivery notes: everything kept, nothing findable. The second is the file that was written up on Friday for the week: tidy, consistent, and worthless as evidence because it is not contemporaneous. A diary written on the day, in the site manager's hand or on their tablet, with the weather wrong and a coffee stain, is worth more than a typed one.

What a template does not do

A form gives the site the headings and the legal driver printed on the sheet. It does not fill itself in, and a signature sheet with no briefing behind it is a record of something that did not happen. The competent person running the site keeps the file, and no document makes anyone compliant. Why we will never call a document "compliant".

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