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RAMS & CPP for Painting & Decorating
What compliance documents you need for internal and external painting and decorating — and how The Site Book handles it for you.
Written by Nicola Dobbie, Founder, The Site BookLast reviewed
TL;DR
- CPP: Required — CDM 2015 applies to every construction project.
- RAMS: Recommended — often required on commercial sites and for any external work at height.
- Key hazards: Working at height (external repaints), lead paint dust and fume in pre-1960s properties, and solvent exposure from paints and strippers.
What compliance do you need?
Painting and decorating might seem low-risk, but there are real hazards — particularly working at height, exposure to solvents and lead paint, and respiratory risks from sanding. CDM 2015 applies to all painting and decorating work on construction sites.
Do you need a CPP?
Yes. A Construction Phase Plan is required for all construction projects under CDM 2015. For painting work, your CPP should cover working at height arrangements, COSHH management for paints and solvents, and procedures for dealing with lead paint in older buildings.
Do you need RAMS?
RAMS are recommended, and often required on commercial sites and larger projects. External painting at height always needs proper risk assessment. If you're working in occupied buildings, you also need to consider the impact of fumes and dust on occupants.
Common hazards
- Working at height — ladders, scaffolding, tower scaffolds, cherry pickers
- Lead paint in pre-1960s properties (dust and fume inhalation)
- Solvent exposure from paints, varnishes, and strippers
- Respiratory issues from dust when sanding and preparing surfaces
- Dermatitis from paints, solvents, and cleaning products
- Slips and falls from wet paint, dust sheets, and spillages
- Manual handling of paint, equipment, and access platforms
How The Site Book handles it
Describe your job — "external repaint, 3-storey Victorian terrace" — and The Site Book creates your RAMS and CPP automatically. It identifies painting-specific hazards including lead paint risk, COSHH requirements for solvents, and working at height provisions.
Frequently asked questions
- Do painters and decorators need RAMS?
- RAMS are recommended for painting and decorating work, especially on commercial sites, when working at height externally, or when dealing with lead paint in older properties. Most principal contractors on larger sites will require RAMS from painting subcontractors before they can start work.
- What are the COSHH requirements for painters?
- Painters must assess the risks from substances they use — paints, solvents, strippers, fillers, and dust from sanding. COSHH assessments should cover the health effects of each product, control measures (ventilation, PPE, skin protection), and storage requirements. Safety data sheets must be available on site for all products used.
- Do I need a CPP for a painting job?
- Yes. CDM 2015 requires a Construction Phase Plan for all construction projects, including painting and decorating. Your CPP should cover working at height arrangements, COSHH management, and how you'll deal with lead paint or other hazardous materials in older buildings.
What's included at each tier
Starter
£0- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
Pro
£39/mo or £360/yr- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- COSHH assessments (standalone doc, SDS upload, site-specific register)
- Worker cert tracking and expiry alerts
- Right-to-work evidence records
- Subcontractor tracking
- Toolbox talks
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
- Integrations (Drive, Xero, Zapier)
Business
£199/mo- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- COSHH assessments (standalone doc, SDS upload, site-specific register)
- Worker cert tracking and expiry alerts
- Right-to-work evidence records
- Subcontractor tracking
- Toolbox talks
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
- Integrations (Drive, Xero, Zapier)
- Up to 10 internal team logins
- Site Supervisor: a field-only login for whoever runs the site
- Up to 50 active site portal users
- Site attendance check-in/check-out
- Multilingual worker inductions (9 languages)
- Optional 4-digit PIN for shared-link document sign-off
- Slack Site Ready readiness checks
Site Control
£675/site/mo- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- COSHH assessments (standalone doc, SDS upload, site-specific register)
- Worker cert tracking and expiry alerts
- Right-to-work evidence records
- Subcontractor tracking
- Toolbox talks
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
- Integrations (Drive, Xero, Zapier)
- Up to 10 internal team logins
- Site Supervisor: a field-only login for whoever runs the site
- Up to 50 active site portal users
- Site attendance check-in/check-out
- Multilingual worker inductions (9 languages)
- Optional 4-digit PIN for shared-link document sign-off
- Slack Site Ready readiness checks
- Permanent entrance QR: guest sign-in and contractor self-join
- CSCS credential capture, review and expiry alerts
- Digital induction gating before check-in
- Live people-on-site, attendance and audit-grade exports
- Single sign-on (SSO) with Okta or Microsoft Entra
- Public REST API with scoped account keys
- Signed real-time webhooks into your own systems
Running live sites with subcontractors? Site Control is the per-site enterprise tier above Business — entrance QR sign-in, CSCS checks, induction gating, live attendance and audit-grade exports. From £675/site per month, plus £5,000 setup.
Where it helps and where it doesn't
Pros
- Lead-paint awareness flag for pre-1980 properties in the wizard
- COSHH covers solvents, strippers, and cellulose thinners
- Ladder, MEWP, and tower-scaffold access controls pre-filled
- Dust-mask / RPE selection guidance in every method statement
Cons
- No HSE L8 lead-in-air register generation
- No integration with PDA / BCF paint databases — SDS is manual
- Airless-spray-specific competence records not yet templated
Why The Site Book
- UK construction compliance tool that ships RAMS + CPP + COSHH + inductions (readable and acknowledgeable in 9 worker languages on Business, with the language audit-recorded) + worker sign-off, including optional 4-digit shared-link PIN evidence on Business, plus site attendance, portal users, site files, document reviews, subcontractor evidence and inspections/actions.
- Generate a site-specific RAMS first draft from a natural-language brief in under five minutes, ready for competent-person review - not a template library you hand-fill.
- Controlled document workflow without an enterprise contract: version history and a recorded issue confirmation before a document is shared with a client or downloaded in the app on every plan, re-sign on revision with superseded signatures preserved plus PCPP import, cert tracking and document checking from the £39/month Pro plan - and on Business, optional named-approver routing (a designated approver accepts or rejects each version, with recorded reasons, before it can be issued) plus client approve/reject/request-changes via share links.
- Transparent pricing: Starter £0, Pro £39/month or £360/year, Business £199/month with 10 management logins and 50 active site portal users. Worker document signing has no per-signature charge; project workers count as active portal users while assigned.
- Build RAMS for any trade - add your own work types and method statements alongside the built-in library, reusable across projects, including a ready-made Commercial Solar PV group. Save a finished job as a reusable project template, or clone it, so the next job of the same shape starts from your own setup.
- COSHH goes deep: a standalone COSHH assessment document, upload-a-Safety-Data-Sheet extraction, a site-specific substance register and an expert-reviewed library - plus per-worker RAMS sign-off and a one-click Audit Pack covering documents, sign-offs, worker evidence, attendance, incidents, COSHH, permits and up to the latest 500 live Site Diary entries.
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