Who is responsible for whom on the refurbishment

The duties overlap and none of them can be contracted away, so the exercise is about who does what, not who is to blame.

• Client: as the party commissioning the work, it must make arrangements for the project to be carried out without risks to health and safety, provide pre-construction information, and (where the CDM duties apply) appoint in writing only people who are competent. It also has a duty to pass on what it knows - which it is currently failing to do with the live board.
• BuildRight as principal contractor: plans, manages, monitors and coordinates the construction phase, controls access, inducts and supervises, and coordinates the contractors' arrangements. Checking insurance certificates is not coordination. It must look at the substance of Volt's method statements and integrate them with its own, and it must supervise the interfaces between trades.
• Volt Ltd: as an employer, assesses risks, provides competent and trained people, and supervises its own work. The Volt supervisor directing a BuildRight employee is a control failure that needs fixing in writing: who instructs whom, and on what.
• Self-employed joiner: self-employment does not create a bubble. He has duties to himself and to anyone affected by his work, must follow the site's arrangements, and must be able to show a suitable assessment for his work.

The principle to argue from: responsibility follows control and influence over the work, not the wording of a purchase order or a subcontract.

Stop the task now, physically if necessary - remove the key from the truck, and tell the Volt supervisor in front of a witness that only BuildRight management directs BuildRight staff.

Why this is the top priority:

• It is a live exposure, not a paperwork gap. An untrained operator on a powered truck in a working corridor is a crush and pedestrian-strike risk today.
• The person is young and inexperienced. A risk assessment for a young worker must take account of their lack of experience and maturity, and there are restrictions on the work under-18s may do. He is more likely to comply with an instruction from a supervisor and less likely to challenge it, which is exactly why the instruction should never have been given.
• It exposes a system failure, not just an individual one. Nobody checked authorisation, training or the interface between companies. If it happened once, ask what else has been asked of him.

Next: check his induction and whether plant is mentioned, decide whether training and authorisation are appropriate for his role (and if so, deliver them properly), or provide an alternative means of moving materials. Record the decision and tell both companies' supervisors.

The client owns the knowledge, but the duty to protect people is shared once the information exists.

The facilities manager knows the board is live in a corridor inside the works area. Her first act is to tell the principal contractor, in writing, today, and to update the pre-construction information - because a client that holds risk information and sits on it has created the risk rather than merely discovered it. The principal contractor then has to control it: isolate and lock off if the design allows, otherwise lock the enclosure, fit warning signage, exclude the area from the work, cover it in every induction, mark it on the site drawings, and put it under a permit so nobody drills, fixes or removes anything near it.

A warning sign alone is not a control. A live board in an active corridor needs physical protection and a permission system, because the person who drills into it will be someone who was never told.

Finally, ask why the information took weeks to surface: the client briefing and the pre-construction pack need a review, and the weekly visit should have a route that includes reporting hazards, not just progress.