Safety boosts business
June 1st 2008

As health and safety legislation toughens and penalties are enforced, reliable accreditation can give contractors the edge needed to boost business.

SAFEcontractor offers an accreditation scheme to help companies comply with the law and win new business simultaneously

The advent of the Corporate Manslaughter Act in April, with tighter legislation, stringent enforcement and tougher penalties for health and safety standards, has focused attention on the role of contractors. Regarded as a potential Achilles Heel for businesses seeking to manage safety risks on their sites, one of the country's biggest contracted out functions is cleaning services. As staff cover everything from mopping basement floors to cleaning windows on the top storey of a skyscraper, the range of risks faced by cleaning firms is extensive and, if injuries or death occur, both the client and the contractor could find themselves in the dock.

"Checking the health and safety credentials of contract service providers has become a major issue because clients who engage contractors without proper vetting of their safety standards will find themselves sharing the blame if something goes wrong," says James Ostler md of the information services division of risk management specialist National Britannia "On the other side of the coin, contractors who can't demonstrate strong safety credentials are finding it harder to secure work from blue chip businesses, who are increasing careful about risk management and compliance because of the tightening legislation." The growing importance of contractor safety has been underlined by the increasing membership of National Britannia's third party accreditation scheme – SAFEcontractor. Over 12,000 contractors, covering more than 100 different work areas – including cleaning contractors – are members, and the company says nearly 500 new members are joining each month. Each one is annually vetted by qualified National Britannia health and safety consultants, for inclusion on a database of approved suppliers.

Database for approved service suppliers More than 120 UK businesses – including over 30 facilities management firms – now require contractors to have SAFEcontractor accreditation and use the approved database as their sole or primary source when engaging service suppliers.Contractors applying to join the scheme are assessed by a National Britannia professional,who examines their health and safety policy,work methods, risk management systems, staff training records and safety performance before making a judgement on whether the business concerned meets the SAFEcontractor standard.

Clients of the scheme have on-line access to a constantly-updated database of accredited contractors.This removes the burden of health and safety pre-qualification of contractors from their own staff without losing the confidence they need or by-passing the due diligence that is required. It also allows firms to apply a consistent health and safety standard when engaging contractors and to manage their own list of approved contractors more effectively by excluding those who fall short on safety standards.

The benefit of membership to individual contractors is that they not only retain their place on the approved supplier lists of existing blue chip clients, but they also increase the opportunities to secure work from other big name firms using the database.

As a result, SAFEcontractor serves the dual role of helping contractors put their health and safety policy and practices in order and it gives them a powerful business development tool.

One cleaning contractor that found accreditation was a major boost to its business was Paramount Services from Shropshire, which earlier this year became the 10,000th member of the scheme.

"Securing SAFEcontractor accreditation 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,"explains Craig Astle, md of Paramount, which serves blue chip clients across the midlands.

"There's clear evidence that businesses are more anxious than ever to show they are managing health and safety risks effectively and complying with the law," says Darran Hughes, operations director of SAFEcontractor."In the light of tougher legislation 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 SAFEcontractor is recognised as a scheme which adheres to some of the highest safety criteria in the market."