Hi

Has anyone else found that Companies are forcining you to JOIN Accreditation Schemes that they have, even though you hold a different one and are SSIP accredited ?

Not naming compnaies but its a game ! not a good one as its getting expensive now !  Accreditations used to be a few hundred pounds now many thousands and its wrong that you have to have several in place when a Company wont accept your current Accrediation and SSIP certification because it doesnt match theirs !!!

Any thoughts !!

not a good situation as its costing us more money against a contract etc

When a feed trough is created many pigs come to feed, at least that appears to be the way in construction.

Forget the founding principles of mutual recognition this is all about the tick box in pre-qualification - just a pity those creating the tick lists fail to evaluate the schemes they choose to list instead adding every scheme they have ever been made aware of.

Even saturated markets such as the CSCS scheme (@ 38 participants issuing 2.1 million cards) can develop novel approaches to extracting more money. Last week it was a standalone APP to verify all the cards in circulation, next week it will be an APP that integrates with site access card readers. Of course once others see this to be making money will we see other providers appear and the whole cycle starts again.

Hi trebor

Brian is spot on. SSIP was supposed to be a means of reducing the amount of hurdles that supply chains have to cross, with mutual accreditation of various schemes.

But clients continue to do their own things and if they decide on the hoops those wanting to supply to them have to jump through each hoop.

Of course, the clients who add extra hoops end up paying more, as none of the potential suppliers is going to take the entire hit for having to go through yet another accrediation. 

So, what happens in practice is that some suppliers just decide not to bother and so the number of potential competitors vying to work for Client ABC gets smaller - that in turn results in inflated prices for Client ABC.

It's not entirely a health and safety issue. If Client ABC insists on say £100m public liability insurance cover when £5m or £10m should be more than sufficient, lots of contractors will take their efforts to win business elsewhere.

P

Originally Posted by: firesafety101

My question is who else checks what the sub contractor writes in his competence questionnaire?

As part of my facilities management I always make an approved contractors list for clients if they don't already have one. In a simple spreadsheet;

1- List all contractors used in the past year (purchasing/finance records);

2- Send supplier questionnaire to all, including questions on accreditation;

3- Whilst awaiting responses check works carried out (permits to work records, accident/incidents and visual checks) to ensure that works by third party contractors was deemed satisfactory;

4- Check the claimed qualifications and memberships with relevant bodies;

5- Chase up and question discrepancies;

6- 'Approve' qualified contractors on the list for future use;

7- 'Black-list' any contractors who are not qualified as they claim (surprising how often this is, maybe 1 in 10!)  

8- Find alternative contractors to meet requirements;

9- Repeat annually.

It's not much work and gives much better control of contractors and assets and  can be used as good evidence for compliance to 9001 etc.

Originally Posted by: Self and Hasty

'Black-list'

Quite an emotive expression for those involved in construction even with the quotes.

As to the qualifications - based on a tick list or are they allowed to condem by their own hand which is sort of where the OP started from.