Important Announcement for Suppliers
At the last CHAS Scheme National Management Board meeting on the 8th November 2011 the board agreed to a proposal that our scheme should, like the majority of other health and safety pre-qualification schemes, move to an annual assessment cycle.
This decision was made with the knowledge that over 80% of our registered compliant suppliers already choose to be assessed annually.
Many of you will be aware of our status as a founder member of Safety Schemes In Procurement (SSIP) and the benefits membership brings to us all in helping to reduce duplication through what is called “deem to satisfy” or mutual recognition.
In the past year over 2000 suppliers have benefitted from deem to satisfy and the savings that has brought. However, SSIP membership now requires that all member schemes assess their supply chain on an annual basis – a view supported by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) and others.
We expect that most of our buyers will move to a position requiring their supply chain to be assessed annually but there are a very small number who will continue to accept a two or three year validity period. If you are registered in the supply chain for one or more of these specific buyers you can be confident the database will continue to show your status to them as compliant. Other buyers whose selected validity period is one year willl see your status as “compliant not valid”. It will be the supplier’s decision as the the frequency of their re-assessment.
Annual Assessment to start this summer
The transition from a two yearly assessment to an annual one requires a lot of preparatory work not least of all in reviewing and rewriting the various guidance notes and processes as well as modifying the database to accommodate this change.
CHAS plans to introduce annual assessment for all suppliers in the Summer of 2012.
We will keep you informed of progress via regular email newsletters and through the web site. The next newsletter will describe exactly what this means to suppliers.
John Murphy MBE
CHAS Scheme Manager
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