At last count there are nearly 30 Assessment Scheme providers purporting to assess the competence of contractors tendering for work. Companies are being refused consideration for work simply because they are not "approved" or have not been approved by these "Johnnie Come Lately" outfits that have spawned over the past four or five years.

The CHAS model was commendable and firmly based on good intentions. We have never had a problem with CHAS - each year our application is approved without too much effort.

There are now 29 known "assessment scheme providers" all working to their own agenda, sometimes in conflict with their opposition, tick box requirements and of course ripping small contractors off to enhance their own profits. I know of one company that has an annual bill of £7K in subscriptions to the "schemes" - just to be on the list!

We have had all our staff trained in H&S matters (at considerable cost but value to the company) including DSEAR & Asbestos Awareness by a very highly qualified and experienced trainer /consultant. He tells it to us free of jargon and delivers competent, succinct and informative courses as required- not bog standard off the shelf rubbish . Feedback of content and delivery is recorded as 100%.

A large major constructor (with whom we have supplied our services for over 12 years) has suddenly declared that they will no longer accept our accreditation by CHAS and two other well known assessment companies & will only accept accreditation by one or more of the other "outfits" of recent spawning.

Moreover, they will not accept our training records as evidence since the training course (Asbestos Awareness) is not approved by UKATA. The course content satisfied the HSE requirements. There is another outfit called Independent Asbestos Training Providers - you pay them to get on their list ! Our trainer /consultant has had more experience of asbestos than any of those sitting in judgement on his ability to prepare and present suitable training across a wide range of topics.

I am of the opinion that this racket or sham must be exposed so that a level playing field is restored for contractors and those advising them whether in house or external consultants.

Please discuss or pm me so that I can move it forward to higher authority.

Many thanks.

Jon.

Jon

There's suggested action by supplier to buyer on the SSIP website, but at the end of the day, the buyer may insist on the hoops they have put up.

Paragraphs 203-205 of the CDM ACOP were aimed at reducing the bureaucracy associated with competence assessment.

I work for a principal contractor and part of my role is check the competence of proposed sub-contractors that we wish to engage. We have a system where if they hold accreditation like CHAS or are an SSIP member the is recognised by CHAS then we are happy that they have had to provide evidence rather than just a tick box exercise. In addition to this if the company does not hold one of these magic accreditations then we will review what they do have in line with appendix 4 of CDM and then take a view of their competence to carry out a specific area of work, this has worked fine for the lasst 4 years and I do not intend to change anything at the moment and feel that this is a fair way of providing evidence to show that we do check our sub-contractors for competence.

Regards

PaulR

Your gripe isn't with the schemes - your problem is the Client who insists on specifics and refuses the pragmatic, sensible and pragmatic approach your describe.
No legal requirement for Asbestos Awareness to be UKATA - this we know. No legal requirement to be a member or subscribe to any qualification scheme -this we also know. A burden of £7K on any Organisation simply for subscriptions is unsustainable - let alone a SME.

The Major Contractors Group is surely guilty of initiating these restrictive practices, with the supply chain now rapidly following suit in "tick-box safety" fashion.

And yet the Government's focus is on the CDM Regulations not delivering? This has nothing to do with CDM.
I can only suggest you lobby (individually, or ideally collectively via any local or national membership you have) your MP, write to Messrs Cameron and Clegg about the real issues here.

I wish you luck. It appears the big guns don't want to know (or have vested interests).
By-the-by: I fully support PQQ schemes, CHAS, SSIP etc. -but not the suggestion anyone needs a full set!

I agree there are far too many tick box no visit accreditation's available.

I do have an issue with CHAS in so much that they refuse to talk to us as Consultants and only to employees of the company which is applying for accreditation.

I understand that this is to prevent the so called "we will get you membership for a price" brigade. This however puts us all in the same bucket and that hurts. They should at least talk to us as the companies representatives and hear what we say. They would then perhaps realise that we are putting good systems in place and ensuring that the people they are accrediting are in fact good operators with safe systems.

I had a recent case where an assessor who had been give the application of a small roofing to accredit was quite happy to talk to me until she realised that I was a consultant, the change in tone of her final email was bordering on insulting.

The real issue as CHAS do not see the need to visit any of the companies they accredit. In fact if you parcel up the same information annually you would probably get accredited with few if any questions asked.

Time for a change in the system of accreditation to encompass fewer bodies, with perhaps a supervisory body controlling them.

I don't suppose that this will change as long as CHAS is administered by a local authority with all of its uncompromising can't change culture.

Over to the political hero's in Westminster to look at the system of accreditation. But don't hold your breath as they will only speak or act on an issue if they think the public are listening and they are likely to get a few votes from it.

Gerry

Excellent posting so far - many thanks again.

CHAS use independent consultants to process submissions as they do not have qualified or sufficiently experienced staff at Merton Council to access. As discussed we have not had any issues with CHAS.

Google 'CHAS Merton' for further details of how the monster has evolved.

Jon

I fully agree with the above posts and have said so before...however until some respected institution like the HSE, IOSH, IIRSM, et al, come out of the closet this is the future. God forbid they should collectively use flex their muscles. It is also another reason why h&s is so disliked by those in industry.

I don't mean to hi-jack this thread but the same principal is happening in the job market. Most job adverts I see these days state must be CMIOSH or GRAD IOSH.

Now it's known that a lot of employers don't know the difference between qualifications and membership of IOSH. But if you are not a member the chances of getting the job are vastly reduced.

IOSH have therefore hi-jacked the job market. Can't be right!!

Rich

Contractor schemes are just a money making, tick box, enterprise.

However, unlike others on here I think CHAS is as rubbish as the rest of them and I've had loads of problems with them.

No real issue with CHAS and personnally i think its a very cost effective method of proving competence as required by the CDM regs.
However, its difficult to justify achilles whose costs run into thousands of pounds especially if you already have 9001, 14001, & 18001.

In the process of going CHAS and SMAS route. Or should i say we're going for one and then cross referencing over to the other.

One other client wants us to go down the Safecontractor route and we've had to decline their request. For some reason they think a £1000 turnover for the last year will justify us wasting money for just their account. Obviously if other clients requested we'd have no choice but we'd wipe out the profit we made just for the legwork before the 'subscription' fee.

Hi

The company I work for has OHSAS 18001, ISO14001, ISO9001 & Rospa Level 5 QSA.

Yet we still have to subscribe to safety verification schemes because clients will not invite us to tender for contracts without being on the approved list.

We have just completed a 2nd year site audit for 1 verification scheme and we achieved a 98% mark only missing out because to get the full marks we needed not to have recorded any accidents.

As we encourage 100% reporting we will never achieve the maximum %. Even the auditor agreed that this may encourage none reporting.

In my experience I have found a few companies that have been approved on some schemes to have appalling safety standards when on site.

but as previous posters have commented on "he who pays the piper calls the tune".

thanks

Further to my correspondence with HSE reference Assessment Schemes abuse, below is an excerpt from response ex HSE:-


"HSE is aware that some contractors and their representatives have raised concerns about the information being required of contractors by some members of SSIP as part of the assessment process and that requirements of some schemes have exceeded the requirements of Appendix 4 of the CDM Regulations ACOP. We are aware that that such requirements can place additional costs and burdens on businesses but which add little or even no value in managing health and safety risk."

The correspondence also confirms their (HSE) frustation and has sympathy with the difficulties with which contractors are faced with when unnecessary bureaucracy is created by SSIP members.

Overall the response from HSE to my complaint has been most satisfactory.

I will of course press on with their further suggestions in an attempt to bring sanity to the aseessment process. Others might consider writing to the HSE as I have done.

Jon

Not really the fault of CDM Regs then?

The irony is/was that the assessing outfit demanded to have "official" details of my membership numbers and grades i.e. scanned copies of renewed or current membership cards. They had these on record from previous years - when renewal of membership was due for renewal they wanted more details - even before the renewal cards were issued! They would not accept verbal confirmation of renewal. All that was required (if there was any doubt) was to call the membership department of the relevant organisations. No - too much bother! Or another covert and sinister information gathering exercise?

Meanwhile assessment process was suspended. That was what prompted me to raise the issue with HSE.

Thanks Stedman and others for their useful comments /links etc. The issue is not signed off yet - far from it!

Jon

I concur with the general consensus on this thread.

I am/ have been responsible for compliance with no fewer than 8 (eight) schemes in the past 2-3 years. That is an awful lot of management time and subscription fees, at an estimated cost of £10k per year to our construction division (which stand-alone is essentially an SME, so this is a good whack). On top of this there are membership schemes for other bodies that are not accreditation schemes but require work to remain eligible for and it really mounts up.

We actually looked very closely at our membership of schemes in 2011 and decided to relinquish membership of one, which was costing £3k per year for a tender yield of zero! This scheme is well known in certain sectors and I won't name it here.

Some schemes are very good, some really wind me up when it comes to annual registration time as they keep me at my desk when I should be out doing my real job! There are only so many instances where I can upload our Safety Policy Statement and Insurance Certificates before my patience wears thin!!

The really frustrating part is that all of our half a dozen major clients all subscribe to different schemes, so all of our registrations are for one particular client with no mutual recognition...

I have now established that a number of these outfits are asking if the Health and Safety advisor or consultant is OSHCR registered.

Depending on the details endorsed on the submission they check the OSHCR. Now if you are an 'in house' advisor I guess there is a mighty good chance that you are not listed on the Register. If this is the case- i.e. not listed as a consultant on the Register - it transpires, quote " we may then have to conduct a number of checks, bearing in mind that we are assessing to our clients requirement..............................."


The section in quotation marks above is an excerpt from recent correspondence from one of the outfits purporting to access contractors in health and safety matters.

I cannot imagine what other 'checks' they are carrying out on advisors or consultants.


Since when has endorsement the OSHCR been considered necessary to avoid further checks being made on advisors or consultants?

Jon

Chris

Your comments about 90% irrelevancy or not applicable to particular application goes to the core of my concern (and indeed others who have contributed to this thread.)

There is a hidden agenda here; OSHCR check, advisors membership number and grade of membership, UKATA membership etc. What has this got to do with the applicant company assessment?

Interesting to note the heavy influence of IT specialists on the management team of one of these assessment /accreditation outfits. Could possibly be a Data Protection Act issue here'

I have now written to the Busisness Secretary Vince Cable, voicing my concerns.

Jon

With the CDM regs being reviewed in the new year would this not be the most appropriate time for the HSE and or the Government to make some form of recommendations with regards to contractor assessment schemes - or would this just be too easy?

allan

It seems to be a standard opening line by every electrician, plumber, brickie, painter, IT installer etc etc, when tasked to add to or amend somebody else's work "which clown did this little lot then?", regardless of who had previously done the work. Clearly opinions differ on what constitutes good work, just like us really.