Posted By John Murphy
Forum members will have seen various threads in the recent past that question or challenge the transparency and adequacy of competency schemes.

John Carpenter in his CDM review report made a statement "Constructionline, CHAS and other schemes (See Appendix 7) should consider how their aspirations might be aligned with the recommendations of this report". This statement is also echoed in the CDM ACoP.

Representatives from CHAS, the NHBC safety scheme, SAFEcontractor, BM TRada, Achilles Verify, Exor and Constructionline attended a meeting with HSE at Rose Court in June last year. The meeting held exploratory talks to establish whether there was an appetite among the schemes to take Carpenters suggestion forward. While there was some obvious and understandable apprehension in the early stages a positive commitment emerged from all the scheme operators and the HSE. We agreed to set up a Forum that would deliver sensible aims such as reducing bureaucracy and duplication and telling clients about their role. From this, “The Safety Schemes in Procurement – Competence Forum” was formed

Our second meeting was held in September last year we discussed and agreed in principle draft terms of reference and the choices we must make for schemes to work together. Forum members embraced a suggestion for HSE to visit each of the schemes to gather information about how each works and ensure the desired standard or benchmark – the CDM core criteria - is achieved.

At our meeting last week HSE reported the findings of their “audit” and decided the schemes satisfy the benchmark and either have in place (or are putting in place) robust quality control features. The HSE identified a possibility that will enable them to proactively “support” the work of the Forum. To do this the Forum agreed to put in place a robust third-party independent audit. The Forum and HSE are to meet with the independent auditor in early March to discuss and agree the audit.

Forum members will make a joint press release soon that will provide more detail of how the forum will work as an umbrella organisation for prequalification schemes. I felt given some of the rhetoric it would be helpful for readers to know that we do take what we do seriously and we also listen to our critics. As you can see the schemes are prepared to accept sensible scrutiny to ensure they are performing sensibly and professionally. Obviously it will take time to embed the work of the forum, I perhaps wonder how patient some might be!

Regards

John

Posted By Ian G Hutchings
John

I think that the fact that the schemes are liaising with each other is a positive one. I believe that there needs to be some very clear communication about what the scheme/s are there for.

I continually see clients who use a scheme and then believe that they do not need to set clear standards and continue to monitor their contractors.

I support any approach which generally raises the game and gets companies to have to consider health and safety. In the past contractors were not having to do this, so at least this starts to set some common questions. The benefits being that there are less and less clients who will accept suppliers with little or nothing in place. It isn't ideal but it is definitely a step in continual improvement and raising of the base level standards.



Ian