«Anche non contemporanea»: the three words that decide whether a fibre site needs a safety coordinator

Three contractors work on the same backbone between two towns, and never cross paths. In March the first digs the trench and lays the duct. In April, once the trench is closed, the second arrives: blows the microduct, pulls the cable. In May the third opens the splice closures, splices, tests. None of the three has ever met the other two. The specification, written back in January, assumes that without physical overlap no safety and coordination plan is needed: one contractor at a time, the project manager writes, does not trigger Title IV. Whoever wrote that never read three words of Article 90: «anche non contemporanea» (even if not simultaneous).

You don’t need the digger and the labourer on site the same day

Legislative Decree 9 April 2008, no. 81 governs «cantieri temporanei o mobili» (temporary or mobile construction sites) — defined at Article 89, paragraph 1, letter a), as any place where building or civil engineering works listed in Annex X are carried out. A fibre trench, almost always, falls inside that definition: we have already written about excavation and shoring and about the boundary with confined spaces, subject to the exclusion, already covered there, for installations without building works. Here the question is a different one: once inside Title IV, when does the duty to appoint a coordinator actually arise?

The answer sits in Article 90, paragraph 3: «Nei cantieri in cui è prevista la presenza di più imprese esecutrici, anche non contemporanea, il committente […] designa il coordinatore per la progettazione» (more than one contractor expected, even if not at once: the client appoints the design coordinator). Paragraph 4 repeats the same wording for the other role — «Nei cantieri in cui è prevista la presenza di più imprese esecutrici, anche non contemporanea, il committente o il responsabile dei lavori […] designa il coordinatore per l’esecuzione dei lavori […]» — this time for the execution-phase coordinator. No value threshold, no minimum man-day count: two contractors following one another on the same job, even weeks apart, is enough for the duty to exist. Trench, then cable-pull, then splicing: exactly the case the rule describes, word for word.

The number that does not count here

The decree uses the two-hundred-man-day threshold twice, for two different duties. Article 90, paragraph 9, letter a), uses it to simplify how a contractor’s suitability is checked: below it, and absent the specific hazards of Annex XI, a single social-security certificate is enough. Article 99, paragraph 1, letter c), uses it for a different duty — the preliminary notice — but only when a single contractor is on site: «cantieri in cui opera un’unica impresa la cui entità presunta di lavoro non sia inferiore a duecento uomini-giorno» (a single contractor, presumed workload of at least two hundred man-days). With more than one contractor, even not simultaneous, the notice is due regardless: the same Article 99, letter a), ties it to «cantieri di cui all’articolo 90, comma 3» (sites under Article 90, paragraph 3) — the ones that already require a coordinator.

What the specification must be able to show

Three documents, not one. First, the appointment: Article 90, paragraph 7, requires the client to «comunica […] il nominativo del coordinatore per la progettazione e quello del coordinatore per l’esecuzione dei lavori» (notify everyone on site of both coordinators’ names), adding that «tali nominativi sono indicati nel cartello di cantiere» (those names appear on the site notice board) — an internal memo is not enough; every contractor in the sequence must get it in writing. Second, the plan: Article 100, paragraph 2, states that «il piano di sicurezza e coordinamento è parte integrante del contratto di appalto» (the plan is an integral part of the works contract) — not optional, but binding on every signing party. Third, the preliminary notice under Article 99, with a copy (paragraph 2) «affissa in maniera visibile presso il cantiere e custodita a disposizione dell’organo di vigilanza territorialmente competente» (displayed on site, available to the supervisory body).

The POS does not replace the PSC, and the reverse holds too

Every executing contractor, PSC or no PSC, still owes its own operational safety plan (POS): Article 96, paragraph 1, addresses employers «anche nel caso in cui nel cantiere operi una unica impresa, anche familiare o con meno di dieci addetti» (even a single contractor on site, family-run or under ten employees), and at letter g) requires that «redigono il piano operativo di sicurezza» under Article 89. The POS is not a small-site alternative to the PSC: it is always owed, and where a PSC exists, the two must fit together. Article 101, paragraph 3, sets the sequence: each contractor sends its POS to the lead contractor, «la quale, previa verifica della congruenza rispetto al proprio, lo trasmette al coordinatore per l’esecuzione» (checks it against its own plan, forwards it to the execution coordinator), work starting only after a positive check, «non oltre 15 giorni dall’avvenuta ricezione» (no later than 15 days after receipt). For the crew arriving in May, its POS must be checked and forwarded before it sets foot on site, not while it is already there.

Where the PSC ends and the DUVRI begins

When the work is not a construction site but an intervention inside someone else’s facility — a cabinet in an exchange, a hall in a data centre, a technical room the operator controls — the regime changes. Article 26, paragraph 1, applies to the employer assigning work, services or supplies «all’interno della propria azienda […] sempre che abbia la disponibilità giuridica dei luoghi in cui si svolge l’appalto […]» (inside its own business, provided it has legal control of the premises): that is DUVRI territory, not PSC territory, subject to the paragraph 3-bis exemptions for supplies, intellectual services or jobs under five man-days. The decree links the two regimes explicitly: Article 96, paragraph 2, states that PSC acceptance by each employer, «nonché la redazione del piano operativo di sicurezza» (together with the operational safety plan), amount — limited to that one site — to compliance also with the cooperation duties of Article 26, paragraph 1 letter b), and paragraphs 2, 3 and 5, named outright. Where a working PSC exists, that site’s DUVRI is not written a second time: it is absorbed. Where there is no site at all — a technician replacing a unit in a hall already built — Article 26 stands alone.

The lever that ties the permit to the safety file

One last clause ties the specification to municipal excavation permits, already covered when we wrote about the four-month silence-as-consent rule. Article 90, paragraph 10, states that «in assenza del piano di sicurezza e di coordinamento […], quando previsti, oppure in assenza di notifica […], quando prevista oppure in assenza del documento unico di regolarità contributiva delle imprese o dei lavoratori autonomi, è sospesa l’efficacia del titolo abilitativo» (without the safety plan, the preliminary notice or the compliance certificate, where required, the enabling permit’s effectiveness is suspended). The permit authorising excavation of public land stops being valid without any one of the three: not just a site penalty, but suspension of the permit itself.

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What we have not verified

We have not read Annexes X, XI, XII and XV — respectively the list of building works, specific hazards, the preliminary notice’s content, and the minimum content of the PSC and POS — cited by the articles above. We do not repeat here the boundary, covered elsewhere, between maintenance without building works and work that brings a fibre job inside Title IV: that stays a case-by-case call under Annex X. We have not verified the penalty framework for a missing coordinator appointment, nor the exact thresholds of the Article 26, paragraph 3-bis exemptions.

The point

Compliance, here, means appointing coordinators whenever the sequence of contractors requires it, even weeks apart, and keeping the PSC, the POS and the preliminary notice consistent with one another within the timeframes the law sets — duties of the client and the contractors, not ours to take over. Deciding means writing into the specification, before the tender, that every contractor in the sequence receives in writing the coordinator’s name, a copy of the PSC and the consistency check on its own POS, even if it will never meet the other crews. Appointments, plans, notices and consistency checks, for a network that accumulates sites over time, go with CSIDIA, the group’s other company, into the same map: which stretches have complete documentation before the next contractor arrives, and which do not. Within the client’s own perimeter, on-premise or dedicated cloud with a data centre in Italy, always with our own crews, never subcontracted.

Does your next fibre site involve more than one contractor in sequence, even months apart? Talk to an engineer: the site visit is free, and the coordinator’s appointment gets written down before work is assigned, not once the second contractor is already on site.