Stage 1 Health and Safety Evaluation

WORKING ON COUNCIL PREMISES AND SITES OR PROVIDING GOODS OR SERVICES TO THE COUNCIL

PART TWO – THE TOOLKIT

This document includes additional information for implementing the Buckinghamshire Council Policy on the Employment and Control of Contractors (Part 1). The associated forms and checklists can be found in Part 3, Forms and Checklists  

1.0 Stage One Health and Safety Evaluation

It is Council Policy that all contractors (with certain exceptions – see main Policy 6.1 for details) are assessed for health and safety. There are a number of alternatives for carrying out the stage one health and safety evaluation of a contractor. The preferred method is for contractors to be accredited by a member of SSIP e.g. CHAS (see below for more details on those schemes) but in addition there are 2 other methods:- 

• Membership of a scheme which is not part of, but which is claimed to be, equivalent to SSIP – this will need to be checked by the contracting officer and may be difficult to verify without doing a full Council evaluation due to the number and differing standards of schemes. Any costs associated with doing this must be built into the tender process.
• Evaluation by the Council using the appropriate internal Council evaluation forms; this also requires internal resource which will need to be incorporated into the selection process.

See below (1.3) for a more detailed explanation of the Council’s internal evaluation procedures the standard forms can be downloaded from Part 3, Forms and Checklists.

1.1    What Is SSIP?

SSIP stands for Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP). The proliferation of health and safety pre-qualification questionnaires has placed increasing burdens on contactors to repeatedly pre-qualify for work. In order to avoid this some of the schemes have agreed to mutual recognition arrangements - SSIP. Any member of a SSIP scheme automatically meets BCC Stage One Health and Safety Evaluation requirements.

Any contractor who is registered or accredited as compliant or approved with a SSIP member also meets the HSE recommended CDM Core Criteria standard (stage 1).

There are a number of contractor health and safety prequalification schemes that have signed up to SSIP of which CHAS is just one. For their construction projects the Council insists on the contractor being registered with Construction line who automatically carry out the health and safety accreditation checks as part of their membership.

More information about SSIP and the prequalification schemes that have joined can be found at www.ssip.org.uk

It is important that client officers using the SSIP database check that the compliance date on the evidence provided by the contactor does not exceed two years.  If it does the contractor must be directed for reassessment to achieve compliance with their affiliated organisation before considered for contract work.

1.2    What is CHAS?

CHAS stands for the ‘Contractors Health and Safety Scheme’. The scheme was set up to cut down on duplication of effort and avoid contractors having to provide the same health and safety information to different organisations every time they tender for work.

Any type of contractor, not just those in construction, can be assessed by CHAS and the process is tailored to suit the size and type of organisation; even the self-employed. Like all such schemes contractors have to pay a small fee to be assessed.

Officers needing to check contractor’s details should contact the Health and Safety Team who will provide the Officer with a confidential database access I.D. and Password. Further general information may be obtained from the public part of the web site at www.chas.co.uk.

Guidance on Using CHAS  

All Contractors

The onus is on the contractor to provide evidence of their membership of CHAS; however, it may be necessary to confirm this with CHAS using their database.

There are different categories of CHAS membership; the Council’s requirement is for a contractor’s CHAS compliance to be 2 years old or less.

To find out on what basis a contractor has been given membership CHAS go into the back detail and read what the assessors have said and check the attachments provided by the contractors and / or the assessors.

• CHAS Accredited - If a Contractor wants to be accredited (a commercial decision for them to make) they must be assessed annually with CHAS. If the contractor is not reassessed after a year, they will lose their Accredited Status, however they do not lose their Compliance Status which is valid for two years.
• CHAS Compliant – if a contractor does not renew their assessment after 2 years their status on CHAS does not change but the contractor will appear on the database as “Compliant (not valid)” on a white background. Some authorities accept CHAS Compliance Status beyond 2 years, the Council does not.

It is therefore important to check the compliance date does not exceed two years. If it does the contractor must be directed for reassessment with CHAS to achieve compliance before being considered for contract work.

Organisations which Appear as CHAS Compliant but with Action Plan

In some cases, CHAS require the contractor to make some minor improvements to their health and safety but does not prevent them reaching a compliant standard. In these cases, this will be flagged on the system with an action plan.

CHAS do not follow up these Action Plans but rely on the users of CHAS to make sure that the action plan has been implemented. The Action Plan is not mentioned on the front page and so is not clearly flagged up to users. Users should reference the action plans in the comment box at the bottom of each individual section of the assessor’s findings for any relevant information.

If items in the Action Plan are relevant to the contract being let the contracting officer must raise the issues in the Action Plan with the contractor, before using them. The officer should obtain evidence that the relevant improvements identified in the Action Plan are addressed.

Additional CHAS information for Construction Contractors

For each individual contractor, the front page of CHAS indicates compliance, fail, resubmit etc. but does not indicate the fact that contractors may not class themselves as a construction related contractor.

Therefore, construction contractors can become CHAS compliant but may have opted out of answering the construction related questions. This is not highlighted on each contractor’s front page. If CHAS users are not aware of this, they could be allowing contractors to do work for the Council when they have not been assessed to the required standards for the type of work they are bidding for.

This is normally a question of contractors not understanding the CDM definition of Construction Contractors.

CHAS do not question that a contractor opts out of answering the construction-related questions even though each contractor does get put into specific work category. Therefore, the original assessed questionnaire must be referenced to verify that the construction questions have been completed and thus assessed if the user is seeking a construction contractor.

N.B. In some cases a contractor may undertake work defined as construction by CDM but would never act in any duty holder’s role or on work above the threshold for notification (to HSE of a Construction Project) except as a subcontractor of a competent principal contractor. In such cases please refer to the Health and Safety Team for guidance as to whether the construction questions should be completed.

1.3    Other Methods of Stage One Evaluation - SSIP Equivalent and Council Internal Prequalification Arrangements

The preferred option is for contractors to be accredited through a member of SSIP, contractors should be encouraged of the benefits of this during dialogue with them. However, they are not obliged to belong to one of these schemes and they may claim membership of an equivalent scheme.

Where equivalence is claimed it is the responsibility of the contracting officer / client service to verify this, CHAS may be able to help (for a fee) but it may not be possible to confirm CHAS equivalence without the contractor completing the Council’s internal evaluation forms.

If they are not SSIP or equivalent, then the relevant internal Council Stage One qualification form should be completed.

The Council’s Evaluation form is divided into sections, only the sections relevant to the particular contract need to be completed, e.g. for social care contracts all the construction related sections can be removed.

Written guidance to assist Assessors in deciding the adequacy of the completed evaluation forms is given in Part 3 Forms and Checklists Appendix 17.