What is the Director's Role for Health & Safety course?

Key facts

• 1-day CITB Site Safety Plus course.
• Built for company directors, owners and senior managers in construction businesses.
• Covers board-level duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, CDM 2015 and the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.
• Aligns with HSE / IOD guidance ‘Leading Health and Safety at Work’ (INDG417).
• Designed to evidence board-level competence at tender pre-qualification and HSE inspection.
• End-of-course written assessment, CITB-issued certificate on passing.

Who the course is for

The Director’s Role for Health & Safety is built for the people who carry ultimate accountability for safety in the business: company directors, owner-managers, board members, partners and senior managers with delegated board-level safety responsibility. It is not a working supervisor or site manager course. SSSTS and SMSTS cover those roles. The Director’s Role sits above them, covering the legal duties that attach to the board and the personal liability that can fall on a director when those duties are not discharged.

Why directors need this training

Three pieces of UK law place specific personal duties on directors and senior managers in construction:

• Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, Section 37. Where an offence by a body corporate is proven to have been committed with the consent, connivance or neglect of a director or senior manager, that individual can also be prosecuted.
• Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015. Place duties on clients, principal designers and principal contractors. Most of those duties operate at organisational level and require board-level oversight to discharge.
• Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. Allows a corporate body to be prosecuted for manslaughter where senior management failures cause a death. Has been used several times against UK construction businesses.

HSE and the Institute of Directors jointly publish INDG417 ‘Leading Health and Safety at Work’, which sets out the practical actions a board should take. The CITB Director’s Role course is built around this guidance.

What the course covers

The 1-day course typically covers:

• The director’s and senior manager’s legal duties under UK health and safety law.
• The four-step framework in INDG417: Plan, Deliver, Monitor, Review.
• Setting the safety policy, signing it off and reviewing it at board level.
• Resourcing the safety function: people, time, budget and competence.
• The CDM 2015 client and principal designer duties.
• Reading and interpreting safety performance data at board level (lagging and leading indicators).
• Incident response: the director’s role when an incident occurs.
• Corporate manslaughter case studies and the boardroom decisions that led to prosecution.
• End-of-course written assessment.

Why the certificate matters commercially

At tender pre-qualification, many Tier 1 main contractors and public-sector clients want evidence of board-level safety competence in the supply chain. The Director’s Role certificate is one of the simplest ways to provide it. It also strengthens the position of a director or senior manager in the event of an HSE investigation or prosecution: training records that show the board took its duty seriously are protective. For owner-managed SMEs in particular, the certificate is often the most cost-effective single piece of evidence of board-level safety competence the business can hold.

How the course fits into the wider SSP suite

The Director’s Role is the top tier of the Site Safety Plus framework. The structure across the suite is:

• Health & Safety Awareness – new operatives.
• SSSTS – first-line supervisors.
• SMSTS – site managers, agents and project managers.
• TWS / TWC – temporary works staff under BS 5975.
• SEATS – environmental supervisors.
• Director’s Role – company directors and senior managers (this course).

A construction business with the full SSP framework in place can evidence safety competence at every level from operative to board. Tier 1 main contractors increasingly look for this on tender pre-qualification.

Refreshers and validity

The Director’s Role certificate does not have a fixed CITB-defined validity period in the way SMSTS and SSSTS do. Industry best practice is to retake the course every 3–5 years to keep board members current on regulation changes and recent case law. Several Tier 1 main contractors specify a maximum age on the certificate at pre-qualification; check the project documents.

Related questions

• What is CITB Site Safety Plus?
• What’s the difference between SMSTS and SSSTS?
• What is the TWS and TWC course?
• What is the SEATS course?
• Can SSP courses be delivered on-site?

Quick answers to related questions

How long is the Director’s Role course?

1 day. CITB-accredited Site Safety Plus course for directors and senior managers, covering board-level health and safety duties under UK law plus the HSE / IOD INDG417 framework.

Who needs the Director’s Role for Health & Safety?

Company directors, owner-managers, board members, partners and senior managers with delegated board-level safety responsibility. Often required at tender pre-qualification by Tier 1 main contractors and public-sector clients.

How long is the certificate valid?

The Director’s Role certificate does not have a fixed CITB-defined validity. Industry best practice is to retake every 3–5 years. Some Tier 1 main contractors specify a maximum age on the certificate at pre-qualification.

Last updated: 2026-05-21. Reviewed by the MPTT CITB Site Safety Plus training team, CITB-approved instructors.