SSIP
Safety Schemes in Procurement
The umbrella body whose member schemes (CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS, Constructionline, Achilles and others) assess contractors' health and safety arrangements to one common standard, with mutual recognition.
SSIP exists to stop contractors paying for the same health and safety pre-qualification six times. Its member schemes all assess against the same core criteria, aligned to the Common Assessment Standard and PAS 91, and a certificate from one is recognised by the others through the SSIP Portal, which buyers use to check a contractor's status. In practice a small contractor picks one scheme (whichever their main clients ask for), passes it, and cites SSIP recognition to everyone else.
The assessment is of the management system, not the sites: a health and safety policy signed by the top of the business, risk assessment and method statement arrangements with examples, competence and training records, consultation with the workforce, monitoring (audits, inspections), accident recording and RIDDOR arrangements, subcontractor management, and evidence that it all happens (toolbox talk records, inspection reports, training matrices). Firms with five or more employees need the written policy and the recorded risk assessments; smaller firms are assessed proportionately. The evidence pack is around two dozen documents, and it is the same two dozen for every scheme.
Where it comes from
- No statute; SSIP is a procurement standard. It evidences compliance with the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and the CDM 2015 duty on clients and principal contractors to check contractors' competence.
- PAS 91 and the Common Assessment Standard (Build UK / CECA).
Questions people ask
Which SSIP scheme should I choose?
The one your biggest clients name on their tender documents. If none does, the cheapest with the fastest turnaround. They assess the same things and recognise each other; the differences are price, speed and how much help the assessor gives.
Does SSIP guarantee I will pass?
Nothing does. What the readiness check on this site does is show you which of the core criteria you can evidence and which you cannot, so you fix the gaps before you pay the fee. Sell readiness, never a pass, is the rule we apply to ourselves.
SSIP, handled on a phone
SiteLynx puts the RAMS, permits, inspections, audits, plant checks and records behind every term in this glossary on the crew's phones, signed on site, with a PDF at the end. 14 days free, no card.
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