Hi there Even though we have CHAS, Safecontractor, Exor and Constructionline I have now been tasked with getting us accredited through the Achilles scheme. The cost is extremely high £3,500 plus they come and do a 2 day audit of some description. I'm not clear whether this is a systems audit or a site audit at a construction site. If anyone else out there has been through this process please could you let me know what your experience was like - and they're not even members of the SSIP!

As the previous poster has said. Contact them first, you can request the audit questions from them and it has a list of what they expect with regards to evidence etc. You will find that once you are Achilles Compliant, CHAS and the like are a doddle in comparison (IMO). They are not only looking at what systems you have in place but that you are working to thm and complying with legislation and best practice. We have been Achilles Accredited since 2007 and are audited annually. The reason they are not members of the SSIP is because the SSIP requirements do not meet the requirements of Achilles. That said do not be daunted, we have had three different auditors now and all three have been approachable and helped where they can. If you want any more info or advice pm me and I'll see if I can help. Good Luck. Clive

I have to receive audits from FPAL which is part of Achilles but am in full agreement with Victor in that they are a total waste of time. The original idea of FPAL/ Achillies is quite good but they keep adding more and more requirements every time they sit down and have their board meetings and to be honest, they have got too big for their boots. Their audits cover Quality, H&S, Environment and Training & Competency. The audit itself adds no value to the organization as we are already ISO 9001, ISO 14001 & OHSAS 18001 certified. When i asked them this question their response was that their audit covered areas that the ISO audits didn't. Absolute rubbish. Unfortunately it is client driven and we can't get out of it. It looks like somebody has done a good job in selling the service they can provide and the larger companies have bought into it.

I went through the Achilles process for my previous company for working on network rail infrastructure. Putting ISO9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 systems in place was a doddle compared to this. It was a money making exercise nothing more, the process we went through was in two parts a core element and then supposedly specific questions on your particular discipline. These extra questions were £35 pounds a pop and their system recommended just over 30 extra questions of which only about 5 were relevant to the work we did. One question was how did we control dust in tunnels – our answer was we don’t go in them. It would have been a bit like asking this question to the captain of a cruise ship. Due to the nature of the work we did a project would only come up every couple of years, which made the audits a waste of time as we had nothing to show. On a more practical side they did run a day long training sessions on how to get the accreditation. Not all of it was rubbish, so may be an idea to cough up even more money. Interesting experience, but I spent about the same amount of time talking to the auditor about his new static caravan as I did relevant questions. Perhaps in other areas audits will be more appropriate. One last point for the working area we wanted the H&S person had to have rail experience and either CMIOSH or working towards CMIOSH ‼! Good Luck with this. Just keep humming the words to the song Money, Money, Money.