The roles on site (Royal Decree 1627/1997, article 2; Law 32/2006, article 3)
- Client (promotor): the person on whose behalf the works are carried out.
- Contractor: takes on, before the client, the execution of all or part of the works.
- Subcontractor: takes on, before the contractor (or another subcontractor), parts or installations of the works.
- Self-employed worker: works personally without an employment contract; if they employ others on site, they count as a contractor or subcontractor.
- Site management team (dirección facultativa): the technicians who direct and control the execution.
- Health and safety coordinator during execution: a competent technician who is part of the site management team; appointed by the client when more than one company, or a company and self-employed workers, take part (article 3.2).
Health and safety study or basic study (article 4)
The client must commission a health and safety study in the project if any of these applies: contract execution budget equal to or above 75 million pesetas (the figure still reads that way in the consolidated text); duration over 30 working days with more than 20 workers at the same time at some point; labour volume over 500 working days; or works on tunnels, galleries, underground pipelines and dams. In all other cases, a basic study.
The health and safety plan (article 7)
It is drawn up by each contractor from the study, approved by the coordinator (or the site management team if there is no coordinator) and must be permanently on site, available to the site management team. It is the document that says how work is done safely on that particular site.
The site books
- Incident book (article 13): for monitoring the plan; duplicate sheets; always on site, held by the coordinator or the site management team.
- Subcontracting book (Law 32/2006, article 8): one per contractor and site, always on site; it records in chronological order each subcontract, its level, its object, who manages each subcontractor and the date the relevant part of the plan was handed over.
How far subcontracting can go (Law 32/2006, article 5)
The contractor subcontracts to subcontractors or self-employed workers; the first and second subcontractor may subcontract again; the third may not. A self-employed worker may not subcontract, nor may a subcontractor that only provides labour (with no equipment of its own other than hand tools). Only in justified unforeseen cases may the site management team authorise one more level, recording it in the subcontracting book.
Source: Real Decreto 1627/1997, disposiciones mínimas de seguridad y salud en las obras de construcción (construction sites, consolidated text, in Spanish), articles 2, 3, 4, 7 and 13 · Ley 32/2006, reguladora de la subcontratación en el sector de la construcción (Construction Subcontracting Act, consolidated text, in Spanish), articles 3, 5 and 8