Rethinking site safety and health in Italy during the design phase

In July 2003, the Italian government enacted law D.P.R. 222/03 in order to provide more stringent rules for the project documents that serve to coordinate the management of the health and safety of workers employed on building sites. Law D.P.R. 222/03 further defines the two main documents for site safety management: the Safety and Health Coordination Plan (S&HCP) drawn up by the client and the Safety Operating Plan (SOP) submitted by the contractor. This paper examines the interrelations that this addition to the regulations brings to the complex system of safety management in the specific world of construction. In particular it compares the proposals, in the design phase, of the project management and the Safety and Health Coordinator as regards design choices (made in the field of construction techniques, materials to be used and technologies to be applied) and organizational choices (made in the field of the temporal and spatial planning of the works), on the breakdown of costs for safety and other important news on the subject of the preparation of the Safety Operating Plan not included in the detailed instructions contained in the Safety and Health Coordination Plan In conclusion, law D.P.R. 222/03 can be considered as an addition to the law which converts European Directive 92/57/CEE “Safety and Health on Construction Sites” (legislative decree 494/1996), on the basis of the experience acquired in these eight years of management of the “safety system”.