Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP) has launched a new internet portal to improve standards of health and safety and contractor assessment in the construction industry.
The new internet portal from SSIP, www.ssipportal.org.uk aims to simplify the process of contractor assessment by providing instant verification of thousands of construction contractors who have successfully completed a CDM 2007 Core Criteria Stage 1 assessment.

Contractors that have been assessed by an SSIP scheme can demonstrate to any client or main contractor that they meet the recognised standard for health and safety performance without filling in additional questionnaires.

SSIP, which is supported by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), brings together the UK's leading health and safety pre-qualification schemes, totaling 50,000 registered contractors, to reduce the bureaucracy and duplication of cost associated with pre-qualification, while providing assurance that rigorous assessment standards have been achieved.

'Clients seeking complete assurance that a contractor is CDM compliant can quickly type the company's name into the portal and check if they hold current certification from an SSIP member', said Simon Mantle, current chair of SSIP.

'This saves time and cost for the client company, enabling them to get on with stage 2 assessments.'

SSIP is an umbrella organisation, established to tackle inefficiency and waste, which impacts on the bottom line of both contractors and sub-contractors.

SSIP provides mutual recognition among its pre-qualification member schemes. If a company has already been assessed by an SSIP member scheme, it will automatically be an accepted SSIP contractor - providing the necessary customer assurance.

In cases where contractors are required to register with a client's preferred pre-qualification scheme, having already been assessed by another SSIP scheme, they can apply for 'special registration' with the contractor's preferred scheme under a 'deem to satisfy' agreement. In the majority of cases this will save unnecessary duplication and cost.

Mr Mantle added: 'It is estimated that annually 5,000 clients collect information on 180,000 contractors using more than 2 million questionnaires, at a cost to industry of £1 billion. The streamlined SSIP process and our new portal will save everybody time and money while providing assurance that robust and consistent assessment processes have been followed.'