Agree - a complete waste of time. However, clients who follow their own QMS's, at present hold all the cards. Often they will be unaware that other accreditation schemes have equivalant (or even higher) ratings than the one they proscribe, so will be oblivious. Also, their 'check box' forms used as part of their PQQ process probably do not allow for inclusion/ acceptance of equivalent schemes.

Unfortunately, until someone at a high enough level has the wherewithal (and/ or bottle) to stand up and say that enough is enough, schemes like the ones outlined will prosper, with new ones coming out of the woodwork every now and then to provide acreditation companies with additional revenue streams.

Unfortunately, this is one of many failings with QMS's - they just don't allow for an element of flexibility in many cases.

RoSPA have been running a similar scheme for many years.

Theirs is dressed up as an awards scheme, but the purpose and value is surely the same. It's incredibly expensive to apply, to buy a nice shiny plaque and certificate.

Strange scheme where almost every applicant 'wins' something.

Year after year, so many drawn into it. Nice little earner!

Count me in. One more and we can form a committee!

and the accreditation is only as good as the assessor.

This week, I have ripped a specialist contractor's management systems and project documentation to pieces despite the contractor being both CHAS and SAFEContractor accredited.

Systems are typical of off the shelf systems that are bread and butter for many health and safety consultants including those specialising in advising construction contractors. The text in the Health and Safety Policy initially provided by external consultant ~2005 is probably nearly identical to the sections of a Health and Safety Manual that it has developed for e.g. a building maintenance contractor, with little effort expended in tailoring the text so that it was bespoke to the company's risk profile.

In an attempt to be "comprehensive" the company Health and Safety Policy references too much legislation much of which is never likely to impact on the company e.g. the Transport and Works Act 1992 (applies to safety critical workers in transportation) and the Work in Compressed Air Regulations 1996 (applies to compressed air tunnelling projects - 4 in the UK since 2000). A spate of 19 amendments to the document between January 2006 and August 2008 offered opportunities to review the relevance of parts of the Manual or to replace obsolete information. For example, the current document references Railtrack which had almost certainly ceased operating mainline railways years before (2002) the initial version of the Policy.

...and generic risk assessment. If working immediately alongsider watercourse, no lone working. So we drown them two at a time? (No reference to fencing or buoyancy aids etc).

Please be assured - there are some of us inside the client businesses trying to reverse the trend towards ever more expensive, more prescriptive and increasingly irrelevant questionnaires. I cannot condone it and I do not support it. I think it's bonkers, and I sympathise with all on the contractor side of the fence.

I have been trying for a few years to persuade my employer (mostly a 'client side' organisation) to use "standard" PAS 91 questionnaires rather than any of the commercial PQQ type schemes...

But the decision seems to have been made to go the other way... A bespoke PQQ qualification scheme administered and run by a commercial 3rd party. Expect to be asked for yet more money to qualify under yet another scheme if you want to do work for this business in future.

Steve