I have just spent 2 hours of my life filling in “H&S Competence Questionnaire” for one of our scientists who is bidding for work with a large multinational company. The questionnaire was thorough to the nth degree- it asked for H&S policy, and organisation and arrangement documents, information on our H&S team, on how we manage risks from, asbestos, chemical agents, biological agents and radiation. They want to know how we investigate accidents and what we do about near misses. They want not just evidence of actual procedures but evident that we follow up these processes and examples of actual investigations. They want to know not just how many RIDDORS we had had, but to list them and what actions we took to prevent reoccurrence. They want to know how many time lost incidents we had, detailing 1-day and 3 day losses- figures which we do not collect as they are not relevant to us- we’re not a factory. The company wanted to know our audit schedule, and what external auditors we used. They want to see our risk assessments (we have hundreds), and for us to explain how we did the assessments –where we got advice, and how we ensured that appropriate controls were applied. So I spent 2 hours doing this, this morning and the deadline for the bid was 11:30 this morning and we only received the paper work on Wednesday and I was not in the office (I was visiting our people in Taunton, you know doing actual H&S with real people) and I have had to postpone audit to get on and do this. And what was the job that this scientist was bidding for, that required so much of my time and took me away from my real job: a desk based literature review! I people wonder why H&S has a bad reputation when we drawn into these pointless corporate games.

Yes, but the people who know what they're doing would have asked you if you had these sost of things first-off! Only thing I could suggest (if this is likely to be a frequent thing) is that you proactively go for SSIP or similar evaluation and then plead your case with the client. In all honesty, I would have thought that a "large multi-national company" would know better. You could drop them a polite letter perhaps?

The bane of my life. We've got a 54 page one on the go. A housebuilder with different divisions are contradicting themselves. Most of the divisions are sending out their yearly (yes they all send not a centralised single sodding one) Questionnaire apart from one who says you have to be SSIP wtc. No idea why one is doing different to the others. I dispair...