Posted By Stuart Nagle
Alan.

From my understanding CHAS was started as an idea at a South London Borough Council, and was deemed good enough to be expanded and eventually adopted by most if not all councils for their schedule of rates and tendered works etc.

It set out specifically with the smaller contractor in mind, most of which were not compliant in respect of health and safety on site and this caused headaches for the local authorities employing them.

When CHAS first started it was a small operation, but has become increasingly popular as it also relieves the burden on local authorities to each continually check-up on contractors, thus costing the rate payers like you and I much money in continually repeated checks by the authorities.

CHAS is now a very large system and in line with this expansion, I would assume staffing to carry out checks, maintaining records and electronic systems etc also come at a price and that price is one which the applicants and users pay for, not the rate payers per se.

It seems fairly obvious to me, but perhaps not always to everyone involved using or applying for the certification, that as things grow and more input and resources are required, costs may increase to maintain and administer the service and someone has to foot the bills.

Whilst the case could be put of more customers less costs, this is a system that requires individual checking and acceditation and is not on a par with a wholesale operation where buying in quanity often achieves better prices....

Hope this helps.... (PS not involved in the CHAS system, but understand the principles)

Regards...

Stuart