Record growth for flagship contractor safety accreditation scheme
May 13th 2008
The flagship SAFEcontractor third-party health and safety accreditation scheme, is now achieving more rapid growth than at any time since its launch six years ago.
More than 120 major businesses, including over 30 of Britain’s largest property and facilities management companies, are now formally committed to using the scheme to assess and accredit the health & safety competence of all contractors and service providers they engage.
They can now chose from over 12,000 contractors all over the UK, covering more than 100 different work activities, who have joined the scheme in order to provide documented evidence of their safety policies and practices.
Over recent months there has been a big acceleration in the number of contractors becoming members of the scheme, with a record 701 joining in April alone.
Facilities managers and other major users of contract services report that the scheme saves them huge amounts of time and resources when appointing new contractors as it pre-qualifies only those who meet exacting standards of health and safety practice.
Darran Hughes, is operations director of SAFEcontractor, a service provided by National Britannia, a Connaught plc company. Commenting on the rapid growth he said: “There’s clear evidence that businesses, particularly large facilities managers, are more anxious than ever to show they are managing health and safety risks effectively and complying with the law.
“In the light of tougher penalties for serious safety infringements, and higher expectations from stakeholders, businesses want to protect themselves against the risks involved when they engage contractors. Third party accreditation is an increasingly popular way of managing that risk and SAFEcontractoris recognised as a scheme which adheres to some of the highest safety criteria in the market,” he said.
The scheme has not only helped major firms UK-wide to manage the health and safety risks associated with employing contractors, it has also become a key business development tool for contractors themselves.
Accreditation under the scheme is increasingly recognised as the hallmark of a safe and well-run operation, giving contractors better credentials as they bid for new work.
For example, Shropshire-based cleaning services operation Paramount Services (UK), who, earlier this year, became the 10,000th contractor to join the scheme, acknowledged that it had been a major boost to its business.
Craig Astle, managing director of Paramount, which serves blue chip clients across the Midlands commented: “Health and safety has always been top of our agenda, and securing SAFEcontractor accreditation will allow us to demonstrate this more readily to clients and potential clients.
“Having third-party accreditation also helps us to develop our business because a growing number of clients now use this approach in their procurement process. We specifically chose SAFEcontractor because we believe it applies the highest standards and therefore commands widest respect in industry,” he added.
To secure and retain SAFEcontractor accreditation, contractors and service providers must be formally assessed each year by one of National Britannia’s team of qualified health and safety consultants.
Clients of the scheme have on-line access to a full and constantly-updated database of approved contractors. This removes the burden of pre-qualification from their own staff without losing the confidence they need or the due diligence that is required. It also allows them to apply a consistent health and safety standard when engaging contractors.
Darran Hughes commented that, from a contractors’ viewpoint, accreditation would become increasingly important, as industry moved closer to agreeing mutually recognised standards for third party schemes.