I call for these to be standardised, and on a yearly basis all companies do them, and issue to Clients. I have a number of them to do for the new year, and its annoying me that its the same info but in different formats. Rant over!

From my prospective as a consultant this comes under one of the third parties that Lofestede referred to in his recent report as making life more complicated than it should be. The intention of these schemes, I am tempted to use the phrase scams, is honourable but the reality is they are a nightmare that serve no purpose at all. They generate unnecessary paperwork, keep procurement departments in a job [they don't understand them and just tick the box] adding fuel to the fire that everyone in h&s is nuts!!! Most of us aren't, its the people that have a little knowledge that are the most dangerous.

Stedman Why not a simple Demonstrate how your organisation manages its own and its employees competence. Appendix 4 is far from the best list for assessing competence and confuses/conflates a number of issues Bob

I am with Stedman and Bob. I completed a Pre Qual recently which asked for my(our) Corporate Social Responsibility Policy. Thank God for google!

I agree that too many cooks are making the same broth hence the pre qual soup is spoiled! We should also note that every CDM PC [or client] also has to manage the other laws that apply to that CDM job, so simply using the CDM regs as the overall reference is not good enough in my opinion - that said its still an easy exercise to incorporate the other areas that apply. However most clients in my opinion do not have competent people checking the pre qual returns nor setting appropriate questions so having a system by which you comply with their thoughts is better for them irrespective of other areas. And we all know that what is written down is not usually what takes place in the real world! I believe that one CDM prequal template incorporating all the CDM areas and other most common laws that also apply to the average job e.g. Fire, first aid etc. can easily be put in place for the whole country and it would cover 80% of all areas but if the HSE did that many organisations with fingers in the pie would not like that approach

On a more positive note, improvement has been made with the move to electronic questionnaires, the questionnaire is stored electronically and you just log in and update any new information and update insurance details more companies in construction are using specialist IT companies to provide these resources. At least it saves completing the whole Questionnaire each time and all regions of the same company can access your details remotely. (its still a nuisance filling it in the first time!).

Wood1e Even the all SSIP schemes put together cannot cope with all the pre qual work - as I have said oft before there is simply not enough people available with the skills and time to do it. Construction clients and CDMCs really are at the root of the widely varying formats, questions etc and I see no real sign of change. Appendix 4 seems to be the bible currently but I have my doubts about its real usefulness. I think it will need the weight of chartered professional body/bodies to get a unified one agreed in much the same way as standard forms of contract. In this regard I think RIBA, ICE, CIOB and IOSH could have a major impact in producing uniformity BUT only by acting in concert, not alone. Bob

During my consultancy days, I had a questionnaire fail because we hadn't included a Risk Assessment for Working at Height.....it was for carpet fitters....

Woody, I beg to differ; SSIP does not in any way reduce the pre-qual burden. I work for a large construction organisation where we are registered with more than one SSIP, we have 18001 and I could reel off a list of certificates and schemes that we have to jump through in order to eligible for tendering with many organisations. We clearly meet the SSIP criteria (which include the display screen assessment); however it does not explain how we meet this criteria, which is why we then have to go through whole PQQ process.