The latest example of a PQQ question I don't understand asks about "compliance with the requirements of international laws related to health and safety standards".

I'm struggling to think of any international laws related to H&S.  In so far as the UK has enacted into domestic legislation the contents of various international declarations treaties etc. (for now at least) we comply with those laws.  Anyone got any idea what 'international laws' they are talking about? 

What international laws contain H&S requirements?

There is a huge amount of international law concerning H&S. it consists of conventions, most of which the UK has as signed up for. They are promoted by the Internal Labour Organisation(ILO) which is a specialised  UN agency.   The real question is how this international law interacts with UK law. In most European countries international law is regarded as simply an extension of national law and courts  of law can enforce legal duties set by international law. This is not the case in the UK , where the government has to draft UK laws to comply with international law. As far as the UK government is concerned UK H&S laws cover everything in ILO rules and actually go beyond those requirements.

So why are you being asked about to comply with international H&S laws? Probably because the lazy useless sod that collates the PQQ simply copied a form designed for use somewhere else ( the Middle East?).  

Totally with AK on this one - its a lazy copy and paste - one that sees legislation seepage between jurisdictions in a lot of construction reporting (and therefore questionnaires) due for example to the design house being US based or the client being a global corporate where head quarters write the rules.

Is New Jersey "Right to Know" legislation really applicable to a UK construction site?

Had at least one customer telling me it was.

Morning achrn

The title of your thread summed it up nicely.

One of our clients used to change theri PQQ for almost every upcoming contract. Some client side Project Manager would add their own pet question which was always entirely over the top.

Came just about the time that I had finally got our Sales and Marketing team to understand that there are X questions that a client could reasonably ask, and "here is a set of answers, now please stop wasting the time of the H&S team".

But this client would still come up with new QQ that were on a different planet to those reasonably asked!

Only other thing I can think of to add to the comments made is reference to ISO and/or BSI Standards (ISO, EN-ISO, or BS-EN-ISO) but can't imagine that bearing much relevance to the question asked.

Originally Posted by: stevedm

what provisions does the contractor have in the event of nuclear war

In some of our insurance our cover "shall TERMINATE AUTOMATICALLY ... upon the outbreak of war (whether there be a declaration of war or not) between any two or more of the following States, namely, France, the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States of America".

We also have a partial termination "upon the hostile detonation of any weapon of war employing atomic or nuclear fission and/or fusion or other like reaction or radioactive force"

We haven't made many plans, but I have warned the teams that rely on those policies.

So, if any of those countries go to war with one another then your insurance is void whether the war affects your business or not.

I’ve bumped my car on the M25, what do you mean I’m not covered because Russia and America are at war.