Qualifying as a Buckinghamshire Council Contractor
Last updated:CONTRACT TYPES Listed in section 4.2 – 4.6
For a Contractor to be engaged by the Council a Stage One and Stage Two health and safety evaluation must be carried out for contract types 4.2 – 4.6 as detailed below.
6.1 Health and Safety Evaluation Stage One
This is a non-specific assessment of contractor’s health and safety management policy, arrangements and procedures. It caters for companies of all sizes and uses documentation appropriate to those contractors who are self-employed or employ less than 5 people as well as those that employ more. All self-employed persons and employers are required by law to have health and safety policies and arrangements in place.
It is the policy of the Council that contactors with current accredited membership of the Contractors Health and Safety Scheme (CHAS) or an alternative Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP Forum) member company will automatically be accepted as being compliant with the Stage One Health and Safety Assessment.
Other contractors not holding such accreditations applying for consideration must either demonstrate equivalence to the CHAS or SSIP Safety Schemes or complete BC’s own health and safety evaluation form(s) appropriate to their circumstances’ and submit it with relevant supporting documentation for evaluation by the councils contacting officers.
The onus is on the contractor to provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate their membership of a SSIP or equivalent Scheme, although this can be checked by the Contracting Officer.
For information on carrying out a Stage One Evaluation using CHAS, SSIP or BC evaluation forms see Part 2 the “Toolkit” Section 1.
Should a contractor lose their registered compliant status or fail to renew it at the end of their compliance period they will be invited by the employing Service to remedy the situation. Failure to do so will result in removal from the relevant list(s) of contractors.
If, however, any Contract type detailed in section 4.1 – 4.6 is going to be awarded using one of the EU Procurement procedures, then you must contact the Procurement Team before you begin the tender process.
6.2 Health and Safety Assessment Stage Two: Contractors Competency
A Stage Two assessment is required in order to establish a contractor’s competence in relation to their experience for the specific work to be undertaken. The Stage Two assessment must be carried out by an appropriate competent person, who may be either the contracting officer, a member or members of the contracting team or a consultant contractor.
The assessment may be carried out at the same time as a tender or at the time of establishing a standing list of contractors used for call-off orders via a schedule of rates. If a standing list of contractors or framework contract is being established for future tendering, competency checks must be made at the time of tender.
For more information about the Stage Two Assessment see Part 2 the Toolkit Section 2.
6.3 Contract types listed in section 4.1
For contractors applying for contracts detailed in section 4.1 – Purchasing of Goods – CHAS registration, SSIP membership or the equivalent is optional although they will still be required to supply basic health and safety information to the contracting officer.
Health and safety considerations will be addressed by ensuring that:
- items are made to a relevant British or European Standard where this applies; and
- the item(s) are suitable for the purpose for which they are purchased.
See Section 5 of Part 2 the “Toolkit” for a Standard Conditions of Contract for Purchasing paragraph for use in contracts.
It may be appropriate to ask contactors in this ‘low risk’ category to supply some basic health and safety information. A question set for this can be found in Part 3 Forms and Checklists Appendix 3.