Diagnose, define, procure, mobilise, operate, remove: the six stages of a site establishment nobody priced
Nobody is bad at this. That is the point. It gets done every time by people who are good at something else, in the hours between the things they were hired to do.
Every project you mobilise runs two jobs at once. One is the asset you were appointed to build. The other is a small town you have to design, buy, connect, run and then delete — and it has six stages, none of which appear on your programme as a line called "site establishment".
Nobody is bad at this. That is the point. It gets done, every time, by people who are good at something else, in the hours between the things they were actually hired to do.
The six stages, and what each one costs you
Here is the whole lifecycle of a temporary site establishment. Read it as a sequence of decisions rather than a shopping list, because that is what makes it expensive.
- Diagnose. What does this site actually need — headcount at peak rather than at week one, shift pattern, welfare travel distance, ground conditions, planning constraints, what the utilities will and will not do, and by when.
- Define. Turn that into a specification a supplier can price without a conversation. This is the stage that gets skipped, and skipping it is what produces six quotations that cannot be compared.
- Procure. Package it, issue it, answer the queries, evaluate on something other than the bottom line, and place contracts that interlock rather than overlap.
- Mobilise. Sequence twelve deliveries, four connections and two inspections into a week when the earthworks contractor also wants the access road.
- Operate. Run it for the next fourteen to seventy-eight weeks: servicing, consumables, waste, cleaning, breakdowns, headcount changes, and a monthly reconciliation nobody enjoys.
- Remove. Off-hire on the right date, reinstate, evidence it, and close it out without a dilapidations argument.
Six stages. Each one has an owner on your project, and on most projects it is the same person for all six, in addition to their real job.
The cost is attention, not money
This is the part that took us a while to say properly, and a project manager said it better than we did: the deviation is not budget, it is focus. A few hours here, an afternoon there, a Friday spent chasing a water connection — taken from people whose judgement is worth most when it is pointed at the permanent works.
It is not visible in a cost report, because the hours are already paid for. It shows up somewhere else: a decision on the asset made a day later than it should have been, by somebody who spent the morning on a generator.
And it compounds. The establishment is loudest exactly when the project is most fragile — mobilisation, and the fortnight before handover.
Where it usually goes wrong, in order of how much it costs
From the packages we have read, the same four gaps recur. None of them are exotic.
- Define was skipped. The requirement went out as a headcount and a date. Every supplier answered a slightly different question, the evaluation became a comparison of assumptions, and the difference surfaced as a variation in month three.
- Removal was never priced. Reinstatement is a line at tender and a negotiation at closeout, and you are on the wrong side of the second one. See what a defined output actually contains.
- The interfaces had no owner. Six correct purchases still make one wrong establishment: the welfare is right, the power is right, and nobody owns the fact that one feeds the other.
- Operating lines had no budget holder. Waste, cleaning and consumables are small numbers multiplied by seventy-eight weeks, and small numbers with no owner are the ones that leak.
What the law puts on you either way
Welfare is not a comfort item. Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, welfare facilities are a legal requirement from the day work starts, and Schedule 2 sets out the minimum: sanitary conveniences, washing facilities, drinking water, changing and storage for clothing, and facilities to rest and eat.
The duties attach to conduct rather than to paperwork. The HSE's summary of duties names seven duty holders, and a business that manages or controls construction work carries contractor duties whatever the contract calls it. That is worth knowing in both directions: it is why the welfare package cannot be treated as procurement housekeeping, and it is why we are careful about which duties we say we hold.
Three ways to take it off the critical path
There is no single right answer here, and the honest version of this section is that the answer depends on how much control you want to keep.
- Advisory. We do diagnose, define, procure and evaluate. Every supplier contract stays with you. You keep the relationships and the commercial position, and you buy the six stages' worth of thinking without buying a contractor.
- Management integrator. You still contract with the suppliers. We control the system across them, so the interfaces have an owner and the monthly reconciliation is somebody's actual job.
- Prime service contractor. Single-point responsibility for the site-services system, and nothing else. Not the permanent works, not the main contract. The three models are set out here, with what each one includes and where it stops.
We are not a main contractor and have no interest in becoming one. We do not build, design or commission the permanent asset. The reason that matters commercially is simple: we are not competing with you for the work you are good at.
A worked example, invented on purpose
This one is made up, and it is made up deliberately: construction is small enough that a real project is identifiable from its constraints alone, so nothing here is drawn from a live engagement.
Take a 60-week civils scheme, peaking at 180 operatives, rural, no mains water, a grid connection quoted at 34 weeks. The establishment decisions are made in week one, and two of them decide the next fourteen months: whether the welfare compound is sized for peak or for week one, and whether temporary power is a bridging arrangement with a date or a generator hire with no end. Both are cheap to get right in week one. Both are expensive to revisit in month five, when the compound is occupied and the access road is live.
That is the whole argument for the diagnose stage. It is not that it is complicated. It is that it is early, and early decisions are the ones that cannot be unmade cheaply.
What this does not solve
Taking the establishment off your desk does not make it free, does not make a 34-week connection arrive in twelve, and does not move a duty you hold onto somebody else by contract. Statutory duties follow conduct, and any appointment that implies otherwise should be read again.
It also does not remove your interest in it. A client who stops paying attention to the site establishment entirely gets a well-run establishment that does not match how the project changed in month seven. Somebody on your side still has to tell us the headcount moved.
Where this leaves you
You can do this without us, and you already do. The useful thing you can take from here is the list of six stages and the four gaps, held against your next mobilisation — most of the value in this piece is in noticing which of the six currently has no named owner.
If it is easier to have somebody else hold them, that is what the Site Systems Diagnostic is: nine questions in, twelve deliverables out, ten working days, fixed fee, and every supplier contract still yours. A specimen of the deliverable is published here, because a description of a document is not a document. Or put the six stages to us and we will tell you which one is actually your problem.
Questions people ask
Who is responsible for setting up a construction site's temporary facilities?
On most projects, the main contractor, and in practice one person inside it who already has another job. The work divides into six stages — diagnose, define, procure, mobilise, operate and remove — and they are usually held by the same individual across a whole project rather than being anybody's actual role. That is not a competence problem, it is a capacity one: the stages are early, sequential and unforgiving of a late start, and they compete for attention with the permanent works at exactly the moments the project can least afford it.
What does a temporary site establishment actually include?
Welfare and sanitary facilities, offices, drying and changing, canteen and rest facilities, temporary power and lighting, water and wastewater, data and communications, security and access control, roads and hardstanding, waste and cleaning, consumables, and where the project needs it, workforce accommodation. The legal minimum for welfare is set out in Schedule 2 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015. The rest is a design decision, which is why two projects with the same headcount can need very different establishments.
Why is site establishment usually underpriced at tender?
Because two of the six stages are invisible at tender. Operating cost is a monthly figure multiplied by a duration that has not been fixed yet, and removal is a line that feels like a small job at the end. Both get carried as an allowance rather than a price. The allowance survives until the duration extends or the reinstatement standard turns out to be higher than assumed, and by then it is a negotiation rather than a rate.
Does outsourcing site services transfer our CDM duties?
No, and any arrangement that implies it does should be read again. Duties under CDM 2015 follow conduct rather than contract wording: a business that manages or controls construction work holds contractor duties whatever the paperwork calls it, and the HSE names seven duty holders in total. Two of them, principal designer and principal contractor, are appointed roles held by one organisation at a time, so they change hands only by explicit written appointment. What outsourcing can transfer is the work and the accountability for delivering it, which is a commercial matter and is priced as one.
What is the difference between advisory, integrator and prime delivery models?
Advisory buys the thinking: strategy, technical requirements, procurement documents and evaluation, for a fixed professional fee, with every supplier contract staying with the client. The management integrator model keeps the client's contracts in place but puts one party in control of the system across the whole supply chain, so the interfaces between packages have an owner. The prime service contractor model puts single-point responsibility for the site-services system with one contractor. Prime means prime for the site-services system only. It is never the main contract, and it is never a CDM principal contractor appointment unless a specific, priced and insured appointment says so.
Where this connects to the work
- The engagement these agents produce — nine questions in, twelve deliverables out, ten working days.
- A specimen of the actual deliverable — the level of detail, not a description of it.
- The three delivery models — advisory, integrator and prime, and which one fits.
- How an engagement runs — from first enquiry to an issued, numbered document.
- Working with us as a supplier — prequalification, standards and payment discipline.
- Put the eight questions to us — we would rather be asked them than not.
Sources
Primary sources only. Where this piece states a position rather than a fact, it says so on the line.
- The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 — legislation.gov.uk
- CDM 2015, Schedule 2 — Minimum welfare facilities required for construction sites — legislation.gov.uk
- Summary of duties under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 — Health and Safety Executive
- L24 — Workplace health, safety and welfare: Approved Code of Practice — Health and Safety Executive