“Do you have to complete a tender or bid pre-qualification questionnaire and need to have health and safety competence assessed at the pre-qualification stage. If you do not have those skills within your organisation, contact Morgan Health & Safety Solutions and subscribe to our Annual SSiP Retainer Service.”
The revised Construction (Design & Management) Regulations, which came into force in April 2007, introduced the Stage 1 Core Criteria for assessing health and safety competence of contractors and consultants working in the construction industry. The introduction of these competence criteria provided an opportunity for existing health and safety prequalification schemes to build on and formalise mutual recognition already in operation amongst some schemes.
SSIP assessments are all judged on the core criteria (threshold standard) approved by HSE. The core criteria describe what it means for a business to comply with basic health and safety legislation. The core criteria were initially published by HSE in Appendix 4 of the CDM 2007 Approved Code of Practice and following the revision to the CDM Regulations in 2015, the SSIP Forum agreed to adopt the Core Criteria to become part of the SSIP Terms of Reference.Importantly, the SSIP Forum work to actively advise and influence clients (buyers) on acceptable interpretation and appropriateness of health and safety competence/capability standards in the UK. Both public and private sector clients (buyers) who run their own approved or preferred list of contractors to require contractors and consultants wishing to be placed on those lists to have their health and safety competence assessed at the prequalification stage. This places a time-consuming and costly burden on all parties involved which is further exacerbated by the number of times a business is required to go through repeated pre-qualification.
A PAS is a Publicly Available Specification and PAS91 is a pre-qualification questionnaire that contains a set of standardised questions, categorised into modules. PAS91 modules can help buyers assess compliance across supply chains. With this set of questions, buyers can determine the suitability of contractors for projects based on their compliance across several core areas of risk management.
PAS91 was sponsored by the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and its development was facilitated by BSI Standards Limited and it is published under licence from the British Standards Institution.
PAS91 includes the following modules: –
- C1 Supplier Identity
- C2 Financial information
- C3 Business & Professional Standing
- C4 Health & Safety
- O1 Equal Opportunity & Diversity
- O2 Environmental Management
- O3 Quality Management
- O4 Building Information Modelling (BIM)
The SSIP Core Criteria* is fully aligned with Module C4: Health and Safety (Amendment 1 November 2017) of PAS91 and also Section 4: Health and Safety of the Build UK Common Assessment Standard (Version 1.2 September 2020).
How can morgan HSS help contractors meet PAS91?
Morgan HSS has been helping contractors achieve SSiP H&S Management Systems compliance with the SSIP Standard (the Core Criteria) from day one as assisting the construction supply chain meet this requirement is fundamental to our mission as an organisation.
So no matter which accreditation body your organisation is registered with, we have the knowledge, skills, qualifications and experience to assist you to meet their requirements. We can act as your “Competent” source of health and safety advice if your organisation does not of this capability “in-house”.
If you would like to find out more about SSiP scemes and how morganhss.com can help please contact us for more information.
SSIP Registered Membership is open to any third-party Health & Safety assessment schemes, including Health & Safety assessment schemes such as those run by major contractors or Trade Associations. Registered Member schemes benefit from a two-way mutual recognition with other registered member schemes, as long as the other registered member approval was carried out in accordance with SSIP Rules and Bylaws. The attached image is a list of current registered members.
