Scaffolding contracts manager duties under scrutiny after £79,300 HSE prosecution for CDM failures

Two construction companies were fined a combined £79,300 at Leeds Magistrates' Court on 4 June 2026 after a scaffolder fell more than six metres through a fragile warehouse roof in Keighley, West Yorkshire, breaking his arm and leg and suffering head lacerations. ^[1] The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which published the case on 10 June 2026, found that both the access contractor and the principal contractor had failed to plan, manage and monitor the roof work — duties that sit at the centre of what a scaffolding contracts manager is responsible for on every project. ^[2] The prosecution arrives in the same fortnight that the NASC published its 2026 Safety Report, which records zero operative fatalities among member companies in 2025, even as the wider construction industry recorded 35 fatal falls from height across the same period. ^[3] The contrast between those two datasets is the clearest argument the industry has made in years for structured management training.

What happened and what the courts decided

James Cranswick, 26, was installing temporary scaffolding edge protection for Clover Access Systems Limited at Acre Mills, Keighley, when he stepped onto a skylight and fell to the concrete floor below. ^[4] The HSE described the skylights as 'almost invisible' to workers on the roof; Cranswick was unaware that any fragile surfaces were present. ^[5] He suffered a broken arm, a broken leg and head lacerations. ^[4]

Clover Access Systems Limited pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 15 of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015. It was fined £26,000 and ordered to pay £2,866 in costs. The company is now reported to be in liquidation. ^[6] STM360 Limited, the principal contractor, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 13 of the same regulations and was fined £53,300, with costs of £3,167. ^[7]

HSE inspector Shauna Halstead stated that the fall was 'wholly avoidable' and that the risks associated with fragile surfaces are well known, with HSE guidance available to assist companies in complying with the law. ^[8] The regulator confirmed it will not hesitate to take enforcement action where roof work is not properly managed. ^[8]

Two readings: safety failure or systemic management gap?

One reading of this case is straightforward: two companies did not comply with CDM regulations that have been in force since 2015, and the court imposed proportionate penalties. On that view, the prosecution reinforces existing guidance. The HSE sets out a clear hierarchy for fragile roof work — avoiding access to fragile surfaces where possible, and installing physical safeguards where access cannot be avoided. ^[9] That hierarchy was not applied here.

A second reading is structural. The NASC 2026 Safety Report, published on the same NASC Safety Day, recorded 82 RIDDOR accidents across a combined workforce of 20,168 operatives employed by 332 NASC contractor members — and zero operative fatalities in 2025. ^[10] The wider construction industry simultaneously recorded 35 fatal falls from height. ^[11] The gap between those numbers points to something beyond individual compliance failure. NASC member companies are required to submit annual accident returns, and their rates are consistently lower than HSE industry comparators. ^[12] Critics of the current system argue that the management planning competence required to avoid incidents like the Keighley fall is not consistently taught or assessed, particularly for supervisors moving into commercial or site management roles. With CITB grant cuts reducing funded access to long-duration training from January 2026, the self-funded route to that competence has become more significant than at any point in the last decade. ^[13]

Why this is a scaffolding contracts manager question, not just a safety question

CDM 2015 Regulation 15 places the duty to plan, manage, monitor and coordinate construction work on the principal contractor. Regulation 13 requires every contractor — including an access subcontractor — to plan, manage and monitor their own work. Both duties are managerial, not operative-level. They require someone in a commercial or management role to have produced a construction phase plan, risk-assessed fragile surfaces before work starts, and confirmed that physical controls are in place before personnel go onto the roof. ^[2][6][7]

In practice, those tasks fall to a scaffolding contracts manager or a senior supervisor acting in that capacity. The decision about whether to proceed with work, what method statement to use, and how to communicate hazards to operatives on the day is a management decision. In this case, the HSE found that no measures were in place to prevent workers falling from the roof edge or through fragile elements. ^[14] That is not a failure at operative level; it is a failure of pre-work planning.

For scaffolders and access professionals considering the step from CISRS supervisor to contracts manager, understanding CDM duty-holder obligations is among the most commercially consequential competences to develop. The ScaffSkills guide on what comes after the CISRS supervisor course covers the knowledge areas and qualification routes that bridge that gap — including CDM responsibilities, contract management and site planning. [pillar: https://scaffskills.com/guides/after-cisrs-supervisor-what-next]

What a scaffolding manager should know: three checks

The Keighley prosecution illustrates three specific areas where management-level knowledge would have changed the outcome.

A broken arm and a broken leg are not unforeseeable events on a fragile roof without edge protection; they are the predictable consequence of a plan that was never made.