HI, I just wanted to canvass fellow professional opinions on to what depth they pre-qual a contractor they use with regard to someone who supplies for them goods/equipment etc as opposed to someone who actually works on their behalf. Do some people actually give the same lengthy pre-qual as assessments and training records etc being supplied? Or Do people generally take a common sense approach and just ask for the main relevant things like; 1. Signed copy of their Health and Safety Statement of Intent 2. Copies of their public and employers licence certificates 3. Copies of any certificates of the Bodies they profess to be part of Baring in mind of course this could sometimes be a MEWP company that you are using to supply the MEWP to another company. Thanks in advance and i look forward to and value your opinion of what others would check for. Alan

Good question, it realy depends on the amount of protection you want if something goes wrong. In many cases a simple assessment may suffice, if the task that is being performed is also simple. But you must assess the complexity of the task and the integretiy of the individual you are employing. A recent example I have come across would be the following: A major retailer I audited later that day, had engaged a fairly major subcontractor to carry out some work that invoved the use of a MEWP. They had inturn subcontracted the work to a small family firm. The owner of this small firm picked up the MEWP from the hire company and the owner recieved training on the MEWP (which he had used previously) On arrival on site the owner spent 30 minutes training his son (aged under 18) to use the MEWP and left him on site to complete the job. So the answer is not simple, I would like to be able to say keep it simple after all that is the HSEs message ,but not all companies are as trust worthy as others. Therefore i would say watch your back and be as thorough as possible at the pre- engagement stage otherwise things might bite you back later. Hope this helps

Alan You are talking here only about companies supplying goods and services right? So it's not really an issue of contractor competence? What I used to do was look at what the company was actually providing and then request only relevant info to enable us to understand and control the risk. I was coming at this from an environmental standpoint as well as H&S. The process was controlled through purchasing who were required to raise a "new supplier request" form for every new supplier. This went to the H&S, envt and QA depts who all had the chance to comment on what info was required and then approve or not approve the supplier on this basis. We also did a major exercise on getting info from existing suppliers. So dare I say it - the process was based on risk assessment. Examples of what we might have required: Company supplying paint - MSDS, correct labellng, correctly and safely packed and transported. Company supplying packagaing - declaration under the Packaging Essential Requirements Regs Company taking away waste - relevant registrations, safe working methods, employee qualifications Company supplying machinery - relevant documentation under Machinery Safety Regs And so on. Hope this helps.

Spud, Just going through the very same exercise myself, working with Procurement to simplify the system. I am looking at having a web based system that allows contractors and suppliers to answer differing levels of questions depending on the type of work they are doing. By all means give me a call and we can discuss. L