CSCS Leadership & Management (MAP) Questions
Managers & Professionals test — leading safe working.
Leadership & Management (MAP) — practice questions (untimed, instant feedback)
- 15 questions · pass mark 90%
- Untimed practice — you see the correct answer immediately after each question.
- Some questions need more than one answer — these are clearly marked.
All 15 Leadership & Management (MAP) questions and answers
These are the same 15 questions as the practice test above, written out with the correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Read them through when you want to revise rather than test yourself.
1. What is a key responsibility of a construction site manager?
Answer: Making sure the work meets safety regulations
- A) Directly managing site staff
- B) Making sure the work meets safety regulations (correct answer)
- C) Recruiting the project's staff
- D) Drawing up the building plans
Why: Site managers must ensure work complies with safety regulations and standards.
2. Which is a key leadership skill for running a construction team?
Answer: Communicating effectively
- A) Designing the architecture
- B) Communicating effectively (correct answer)
- C) Operating machinery
- D) Making building materials
Why: Leaders need effective communication to convey safety procedures and resolve issues.
3. In construction management, what does 'QA' stand for?
Answer: Quality Assurance
- A) Quick Action
- B) Quality Assessment
- C) Quality Assurance (correct answer)
- D) Quantitative Analysis
Why: QA stands for Quality Assurance — the processes that ensure the quality of the work.
4. A worker keeps breaking safety rules. What should a construction manager do?
Answer: Give further training and record what happened
- A) Let it go
- B) Sack them on the spot
- C) Give further training and record what happened (correct answer)
- D) Report them to the safety authorities
Why: Further training plus a written record addresses the issue constructively.
5. Why carry out regular risk assessments on a construction site?
Answer: To find hazards and reduce them
- A) To push up project costs
- B) To find hazards and reduce them (correct answer)
- C) To train staff
- D) To guarantee the project finishes
Why: Regular assessments identify hazards so preventive measures can be put in place.
6. You are supervising a confined-space entry; the permit expires in 20 minutes but the job needs another hour. What do you do?
Answer: Stop, evacuate the space and issue a new permit
- A) Stop, evacuate the space and issue a new permit (correct answer)
- B) Carry on until the permit expires
- C) Tell the workers to speed up and finish
- D) Nothing
Why: Permits are time-limited so conditions are re-tested — stop, clear the space and re-issue.
7. A new starter arrives with no proof of induction and the job is on the critical path. What is the correct response?
Answer: Refuse site access until induction is done
- A) Let them work because of the schedule
- B) Refuse site access until induction is done (correct answer)
- C) Induct them on the spot yourself
- D) Ignore it
Why: Schedule pressure never justifies skipping induction.
8. In a daily briefing a worker raises a safety concern not covered by the method statement. How should you handle it?
Answer: Take it seriously and reassess the risk there and then
- A) Dismiss it and move on
- B) Take it seriously and reassess the risk there and then (correct answer)
- C) Tell them to be quiet
- D) Ignore it because it is not documented
Why: Acting on valid concerns is what keeps a safety culture credible.
9. You see a subcontractor using a damaged grinder; they say their firm allows it. What is your authority?
Answer: You can stop the work immediately
- A) You have none
- B) You can stop the work immediately (correct answer)
- C) You must first call their own supervisor
- D) It is not your responsibility
Why: A site supervisor can stop unsafe work regardless of who employs the operative.
10. A near miss is reported and the investigation will take hours. What is your minimum obligation?
Answer: Log it in the near-miss register and share the immediate finding
- A) Log it and forget it
- B) Log it in the near-miss register and share the immediate finding (correct answer)
- C) Do nothing until the investigation ends
- D) Only tell your manager
Why: Log it the same day and share the immediate learning at the next toolbox talk.
11. Under CDM 2015, who has the legal duty to draw up the construction phase plan?
Answer: The principal contractor
- A) The principal contractor (correct answer)
- B) The client
- C) The safety officer
- D) The project manager
Why: The client must ensure one exists, but drawing it up is the principal contractor's duty.
12. A project runs over 30 days with 20+ workers at once, or exceeds 500 person-days. What is required?
Answer: The client submits an F10 notification to the HSE
- A) The contractor submits an F10
- B) The client submits an F10 notification to the HSE (correct answer)
- C) No action
- D) The project manager phones the HSE
Why: Those thresholds trigger the client's F10 notification under CDM 2015.
13. As principal designer on a 1970s office refurbishment, which survey must be in place before intrusive work?
Answer: An asbestos refurbishment and demolition (R&D) survey
- A) A general health and safety survey
- B) An asbestos refurbishment and demolition (R&D) survey (correct answer)
- C) A structural survey
- D) A CDM compliance survey
Why: Pre-2000 buildings likely contain asbestos, so an R&D survey is required first.
14. Your accident frequency rate is rising. Which leading indicator best helps you diagnose the cause early?
Answer: Near-miss reporting rate
- A) Toolbox-talk attendance
- B) Training completion rate
- C) Near-miss reporting rate (correct answer)
- D) Past audit results
Why: A healthy near-miss reporting rate flags problems before the next serious incident.
15. A subcontractor's competence evidence is missing but the gang has arrived. What must the principal contractor do?
Answer: Refuse the work until competence evidence is provided
- A) Let the work proceed
- B) Do a quick informal check
- C) Refuse the work until competence evidence is provided (correct answer)
- D) Just inform the client
Why: CDM 2015 requires every operative to be competent and inducted before working.
What this topic covers in the CSCS test
This is the Managers and Professionals (MAP) side of the HS&E test. CITB sets it in five sections: legal and management, occupational health, wellbeing and welfare, general safety, high risk activities, and environment. It is not the Supervisory specialist test, which is built instead on the five core Operatives areas plus a specialist section. It asks less about what a hazard looks like and more about what you do with authority: who holds which duty under CDM 2015, what you stop, and what has to be written down. The right answer usually has a competent person deciding and a record left behind.
- CDM 2015 duty holders: client, principal designer, principal contractor, contractor and worker
- The F10 notification, the construction phase plan and the health and safety file
- Risk assessments and method statements, and when the law requires them in writing
- Induction, competence checks, supervision and refusing site access
- Permits to work, what they authorise, and leaving a job safe at the end of a shift
- Toolbox talks, near-miss reporting and incident investigation
- Leading indicators as well as accident figures
Key facts worth memorising
- Notifiable projects
- A project must be notified to HSE if the work will last longer than 30 working days with more than 20 workers on site at once, or exceed 500 person days. The client gives the notice.
- Who writes the plan
- The principal contractor, or the sole contractor, prepares and updates the construction phase plan. The principal designer prepares the health and safety file where there is more than one contractor.
- Record before you break
- CDM 2015 regulation 20 requires the arrangements for demolition or dismantling to be recorded in writing before that work begins.
- Five or more
- Every employer must make a suitable and sufficient risk assessment, and where five or more people are employed the significant findings must be recorded.
- A permit does not make a job safe
- HSE says so plainly. A permit states what work is allowed, when, and what has been made safe, and the people doing the job sign it.
- Plan, Do, Check, Act
- HSG65 sets out the cycle. The Check stage expects preventive information such as training progress alongside incident data such as accident and sickness absence rates.
What people get wrong
Only a worker's own employer can stop their work.
Under CDM 2015 regulation 15(3), where there is more than one contractor each must comply with the principal contractor's directions. Unsafe work gets stopped first and the employer sorted out after, not the other way round.
The client draws up the construction phase plan.
The client must make sure a plan exists before the construction phase begins, but preparing it is the principal contractor's duty. The client's own documents are the F10 and the pre-construction information.
Programme pressure can justify starting before induction.
It cannot. Operatives must be inducted and competent before they start. A critical-path job is a reason to arrange the induction quickly, not to skip it.
Accident figures are the best measure of how safe a site is.
Accident rates only tell you what has already gone wrong. HSE's Plan, Do, Check, Act guidance asks for preventive information, such as progress of training and maintenance programmes, to be given appropriate weight alongside incident data such as accident and sickness absence rates.
Answering these questions in the test
These questions are scenario-based, and the wrong options are the commercially convenient ones: carry on, speed up, sort it later. Read for two things. First, who holds the duty, because CDM 2015 splits duties between client, principal designer, principal contractor and contractor. Second, what gets written down, because the law keeps demanding a record. Where two answers both look responsible, pick the one that stops the work, brings in a competent person and leaves a record. The test is 50 questions in 45 minutes with a pass mark of 45.
Sources
Written from the following. Where a figure could not be verified against one of these, it has been left out rather than approximated — our sources and methodology explains how we date and re-check them. Spotted something wrong? Report an error and we will fix it.
- hse.gov.uk/construction/cdm/faq/index.htm
- hse.gov.uk/construction/safetytopics/admin.htm
- legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/51/regulation/20/made
- hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/steps-needed-to-manage-risk.htm
- hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/training/supervision.htm
- hse.gov.uk/humanfactors/topics/ptw.htm
- hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/hsg65.htm
- hse.gov.uk/leadership/plan-do-check-act/check.htm
- citb.co.uk/courses-tests/health-safety-and-environment-hse-test/managers-and-professionals-test
Topics that come up alongside leadership & management (map)
Ready for the real thing?
When you are scoring 90% or better here, take a timed 50-question mock under exam conditions, then book your CITB HS&E test.