The Client's Role – What Determines the HSE Coordinator's Effectiveness

Introduction

Previous issues in this series examined the HSE Coordinator's obligations, entitlements and toolkit in detail. This issue approaches the subject from a different perspective – that of the client. Because even the most well-prepared, legally compliant coordinator is only as effective as the client genuinely enables them to be.

This authorisation, however, is not a matter of the client's goodwill or discretion – it is the client's own statutory duty. The coordinator's right to stop work (Section 82/A of the OHS Act) does not depend on the client's approval. If a client pressures or replaces a coordinator for making a lawful safety decision, that itself is evidence that the client failed to enable the coordinator to be effective – which increases, not reduces, the client's own statutory liability.

Decree 4/2002. (II.20.) SzCsM-EüM does not place obligations solely on the coordinator – the client's (employer's) liability is at least equally significant, and cannot be transferred to another party or substituted by documentation alone.

The client's statutory liability

What the legislation says about the client

This provision has several fundamental consequences that a significant proportion of clients do not fully appreciate:

• The client cannot transfer their liability to the coordinator – appointing a coordinator does not relieve the client of their own statutory obligation
• The client is responsible for ensuring that the coordinator is genuinely able to carry out the role – not merely appointed on paper
• The client's liability remains in force even where the coordinator has failed to act – the question is whether the client did everything in their power to enable the coordinator to be effective

Authorisation

Authorisation as the coordinator's most important working tool

The coordinator's statutory entitlements are not sufficient on their own – genuine effectiveness requires explicit authorisation given by the client. This is not merely a matter of courtesy: without authorisation, the coordinator's instructions can simply be disregarded by the main contractor, the construction manager or the site manager.

What the appointment document and client authorisation must contain

If the client does not provide the above authorisations, the coordinator formally satisfies the statutory requirements but is rendered genuinely powerless. This is precisely the difference between a coordinator who exists on paper and one who is genuinely effective.

The right to stop work

The right to stop work belongs to the coordinator – what must the client clarify?

Under Section 82/A of the OHS Act, a person performing occupational safety specialist activities – the coordinator – is obliged to stop or cause work to be stopped in the event of immediate and serious danger. This is not a discretionary decision but a statutory obligation, and it is not granted by the client or the main contractor: it arises directly from the law, independent of the client's approval.

In practice, however, stopping work has significant organisational, financial and legal consequences, and main contractors are often inclined to dispute or ignore such an instruction if it isn't clearly anchored in the contractual chain. For this reason, the client doesn't need to "grant" the right itself – it already belongs to the coordinator – but does need to make its exercise unambiguous and undisputable at contract level:

The procedure: when consultation is required – and when it isn't

A common source of uncertainty in practice is whether, upon identifying a risk, the coordinator must stop work immediately without consultation, or whether there's room for on-site discussion with the site manager, the project manager, or the client's representative. This isn't a theoretical question – the absence of a clear procedure breeds tension and mistrust on both sides.

This two-tier procedure is worth setting out in advance – in the Safety and Health Plan itself, or in the appointment document – so every party knows the rules before a situation arises. This is exactly the kind of content element the earlier section of this guide ("The content of the Safety and Health Plan") identified as missing from the statutory framework.

A predefined, jointly understood procedure doesn't weaken the coordinator's statutory authority – on the contrary, it makes it transparent and predictable, reducing mistrust and the likelihood of conflict for everyone involved.

Organisational culture

The impact of the client's approach on the project's HSE culture

Beyond statutory compliance, the client's approach decisively influences the entire project's HSE culture. If the client treats the coordinator as an administrative burden, everyone – including the main contractor and subcontractors – senses this and behaves accordingly.

International good practice

The coordinator as a partner – an unresolved problem

This series has so far focused on the coordinator's statutory tools and the importance of client authorisation. But there's a deeper, largely unspoken problem in the profession: many main contractors and subcontractors don't see the coordinator as a partner, but as an obstacle – someone who slows down the work and adds cost and bureaucracy. This perception isn't unfounded: in local practice, we too often encounter the type of coordinator who threatens a stoppage over every minor deviation instead of looking for a solution. The result is predictable: main contractors and subcontractors start lobbying the client to narrow the coordinator's role, or to replace them with someone more "accommodating".

It's worth stating plainly: the common view among main contractors and subcontractors that regulatory compliance hinders the work is mistaken. Both experience and international practice show that early, professionally executed safety planning prevents delays and extra costs – it doesn't cause them.

What international practice does differently

The UK's CDM 2015 (Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015) addresses this structurally: Regulations 5 and 8 place a mutual duty to "cooperate and coordinate" not only on the Principal Designer or Principal Contractor, but on every duty holder – designer, contractor, client. Safety becomes a shared project responsibility rather than the sole burden of one role, with the coordinator acting as facilitator rather than sole decision-maker.

In the Scandinavian models (e.g. Norway's verneombud or Sweden's arbetsmiljöombud safety representative systems), the safety representative participates in project meetings from the design phase onward, with authority extending beyond stopping work to proposing alternative solutions before an issue escalates into a stoppage. The underlying assumption: involving the safety professional early is cheaper and faster than late intervention.

A new model: the three pillars of partner-based HSE coordination

Building on this, it's worth deliberately establishing a partner-based HSE coordination model locally, built on three pillars:

For construction leaders, this translates into concrete criteria for selecting a coordinator – beyond the statutory qualification requirements:

This shift in mindset isn't yet an expectation – it's a choice. And that's exactly what allows those who make it first to gain a competitive edge. Coordinators and HSE providers who position themselves as partners, not inspectors, will increasingly be the ones sophisticated clients and developers seek out – not because they're cheaper, but because they mean less risk, less delay, and better collaboration.

Regulatory gap

The content of the Safety and Health Plan – what the law doesn't define

Decree 4/2002. (II.20.) SzCsM-EüM requires the preparation of a Safety and Health Plan, but does not specify its mandatory content in detail. This gap is related to another problem raised earlier in this series – the uncertainty around authorisation: both stem from the fact that the legislation defines the framework but doesn't fill it with clear, enforceable requirements.

In practice, this means the quality of Safety and Health Plans varies enormously between projects and coordinators: some are a few generic, template-based pages; others are detailed, project-specific risk assessments. Because there's no statutory minimum content, the authority has no consistent benchmark to inspect against – so the plan often becomes a question of formal existence rather than substantive adequacy. This reinforces exactly the same uncertainty that clouds the relationship between the client, the developer and the coordinator: there's no clear, universally known baseline to work from.

By comparison, the UK's CDM 2015 regulations set out in Schedule 3 exactly what a Construction Phase Plan must contain – including a project description, the schedule, risk management measures, a list of hazardous activities with specific mitigating measures, and a clear allocation of responsibilities. Swedish and Norwegian regulations similarly prescribe structured mandatory content for safety planning documentation. This isn't bureaucratic overhead – it's precisely what makes clear what the authority, the client and the main contractor can legitimately expect from the document.

What a minimum content standard would clarify

A statutory minimum content requirement – even in the form of a sector recommendation or standard – would at minimum clarify the following elements:

• The mandatory elements of a project-specific – not template-based – risk assessment
• A responsibility matrix for all parties involved in construction (client, main contractor, subcontractors, coordinator)
• Identification of hazardous work processes and the specific preventive measures assigned to each
• The required frequency of plan updates and the associated documentation obligation
• The minimum elements the authority can actually inspect and hold parties accountable for

Until this content framework exists at the statutory level, the responsibility falls on the profession itself: coordinators and clients who voluntarily apply a detailed, auditable content standard in their own practice not only protect themselves legally, but help turn the Safety and Health Plan from a document that exists on paper into a genuine project management tool.

Shared interest

The client and the coordinator ultimately want the same thing

Throughout this series we have noted on multiple occasions that the coordinator's work is not directed against the client – it serves precisely to protect the client. This issue is a good place to set out this point in full.

The client's checklist for coordinator appointment

• Does the appointed coordinator meet the three-part qualification requirement under Section 2 of Decree 4/2002?
• Does the appointment document clearly set out the coordinator's authority and right of instruction over the main contractor?
• Does the coordinator have unrestricted site access rights and access to documentation?
• Is the coordinator a standing member of project management meetings?
• Does the coordinator have direct contact with the client – not only through the main contractor?
• Is the right to stop work clearly recorded in both the appointment document and the main contract?
• Does everyone within the client's organisation know who the coordinator is and what their role entails?

The coordinator is only as effective as the client enables them to be. If the client genuinely protects their own legal and financial interests, authorising the coordinator is not a burden – it is an investment.