What contractor safety coordination is, and who it affects
When workers from several companies share the same site, someone has to coordinate safety between them. In Spain this is a legal duty called CAE, short for the Spanish term for coordination of business activities.
Spain regulates it in article 24 of its Occupational Risk Prevention Act, developed by Royal Decree 171/2004. Other countries set similar requirements through their own safety rules, insurers and customer contracts.
In practice it affects two kinds of company. Owners or operators of a building or plant that let in maintenance, cleaning or security contractors. And companies that maintain other people’s facilities and subcontract part of the work themselves.
This article does not replace your safety advisor or your lawyer. It is about the part that fails most often day to day: keeping the documents current.
Which documents to request
What you request depends on the activity, its risks and what your safety advisor says. These are the ones that come up most often in practice:
- From the company: the risk assessment and safety plan for its activity, how it organizes safety, and its liability insurance.
- From each worker: safety training and information for their role, medical fitness where required, and proof that they are on the payroll.
- For the specific job: any permits or procedures the site requires, such as work at height or hot work.
Separate what is mandatory, without which nobody gets in, from what is recommended. If everything is mandatory, nothing is, and the list ends up in a drawer.
Every document has its own validity
The most common mistake is treating documents as an onboarding step: requested at the start and never looked at again. But each document expires at its own pace.
| Document type | Validity (example) |
|---|---|
| List of workers on the payroll | One month |
| Liability insurance certificate | One year, until renewal |
| Worker’s medical fitness | Whatever their last exam states |
| Risk assessment for the activity | Until the activity or its risks change |
These are examples to show the method: your safety advisor sets the validity of each type.
What matters is that each type has its own validity, in months, and that every uploaded document carries its expiration date. Without a date, no reminder is possible.
Who reviews them, and what happens on rejection
Uploading a PDF is not the same as having the document. Someone has to open it and check that it is what was requested, that it belongs to that company and that it is current.
- One owner, or a small group that reviews documents for all suppliers. If “whoever is free” reviews them, nobody does.
- Accept or reject, always with a reason. “Certificate from a different company” or “expired last month” tells the subcontractor what to fix.
- A review deadline. A document waiting three weeks for review is the same as not having it.
The reminder, before it expires
A reminder on the day a document expires is too late: the worker is already on the way. A useful reminder leaves time to renew it, for example thirty days.
And it has to reach whoever can fix it, which is the subcontractor. Your team should only hear about it if the date passes and no new document has been uploaded.
What to do with a job when a document is missing
There are no shortcuts here: the decision belongs to the company, not the software. Some cases are clear, such as work at height without the training that covers it. Others are judgment calls, such as renewed insurance whose certificate has not arrived yet.
What is worth writing down is the rule: which documents block a job, who can approve an exception and where it is recorded.
Common mistakes
- A shared folder with no dates. All the PDFs are there, but nobody knows which ones are still valid.
- The PDF nobody opens. Documents are assumed fine because they were uploaded, not because they were reviewed.
- A reminder that arrives after expiry, or that reaches your team instead of the subcontractor.
- The same list for every activity. The landscaper is asked for the electrician’s paperwork, and the list stops being taken seriously.
- Reviewing only when the supplier is onboarded. Today’s documents are not the ones you will have in six months.
How to tell it is working
- Suppliers with all mandatory documents current, out of all those working this month.
- Documents waiting for review, and how many days they have been waiting.
- Documents expiring in the next thirty days with no renewal uploaded.
- Jobs assigned with documents not current, and who approved each exception.
The fourth number does not have to be zero. It is a problem only if nobody knows why. For the rest of working with subcontractors, see how to work with subcontractors without losing control of the service.
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