Contractor Health and Safety Assessment Scheme
What is CHAS?
CHAS is a government run (not for profit) scheme administered by the London Borough of Merton. CHAS (Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme) developed and refined over a number of years by local government health and safety and procurement professionals, with the support of the Health and Safety Executive. Although the CHAS scheme has been developed by government bodies, the CHAS scheme is available for use by any public and private sector organisation as an aid when short listing contractors, suppliers and consultants who apply to work for them. It provides information and assurances about the health and safety systems and competence of the organisations who have been CHAS assessed or accredited.
Organisations apply to CHAS to become CHAS assessed, by doing so their potential clients know that they meet minimum acceptable standards of health and safety compliance. Clients from both the public and private sectors use CHAS to make assessments of contractors in this way. Once the CHAS application has been approved for an organisation, their details are uploaded to the CHAS database where client members of CHAS can review an organisations details and check that they are in fact CHAS registered. One of the benefits to contractors is that by making a successful CHAS application, they can demonstrate to a wide number of potential clients that they achieve or exceed the minimum standards laid down by the CHAS scheme.
Furthermore with the implementation of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 (CDM), there are stricter requirements on Clients and Principal Contractors to ensure that they only employ 'Competent Contractors'. CHAS is however named in the CDM regulations by the Health and Safety Executive as being one of the requirements that can be used when demonstrating your competence as an organisation.
What Does CHAS Assess?
The CHAS assessment does not assess health and safety competence for specific types of work but concentrates on fundamental health and safety management and compliance issues as they apply to the work you undertake. The table below shows the main areas that will be assessed as part of your application, though in all cases documented evidence and examples have to be provided:
- General Policy Statement
- Workplace and Inspections
- Health & Safety Arrangements
- Access to Competent H&S Advice
- Work Equipment
- Health Surveillance
- Display Screen Equipment
- Fire Risk Assessment
- Health & Safety Training
- Accident Reporting
- Consultation Arrangements
- Risk Assessments & COSHH Assessments
- First Aid
- Manual Handling
- Asbestos Awareness and Management
- Personal Protective Equipment
- Fire and Emergency Procedures
- Monitoring, Audit and Review
- Work Equipment
- Electrical Safety
- Contractor Management
Full details of the assessment standards can found on the following web page:
http://www.chas.gov.uk/chas/Downloads/AssessmentStandards.doc
What Are The Benefits Of Belonging To CHAS?
Membership of CHAS can assist contractors by:
- Demonstrating a level of compliance with health and safety law (to assess competence);
- Avoids duplication of effort by reducing the need to submit multiple H&S Questionnaires to clients;
- Overcomes inconsistency in assessments with some contractors being assessed as compliant by one employer but not others;
- Enabling the health and safety elements of Constructionline to be complied with.
How Do I Become CHAS Registered?
To become CHAS registered, you need to download a copy of the relevant application form from the CHAS website which can be found at the following location: http://www.chas.gov.uk
Once you have your CHAS application form you need to answer all of the various questions, provide evidence to support your answers and submit a wide range of documentation, including training certificates, your health and safety policy document, risk assessments, COSHH assessments, method statements, fire risk assessments, manual handling assessments and other documentation. In addition to this you also have to provide details on your historic health and safety performance and details of where you obtain your health and safety advice, information and support from.
A Word Of Caution!
Although many see the CHAS assessment process as being easy and straightforward, this is usually far from the truth, in fact the failure rate for contractors applying to CHAS currently stands at the incredibly high percentage of 80% - this is clearly stated on the CHAS website for all to see! We therefore strongly advise organisations to think very carefully before making an application and as it clearly states on the front page of the CHAS form, those with a responsibility for H&S should complete the form, if necessary UK Safety Services have significant experience in making successful CHAS applications on behalf of our clients.
How Can We Help?
If you need to make a CHAS application make sure you contact us before doing so, we can reduce the burden and streamline your entire CHAS application by working with you to ensure that you have the necessary systems, procedures and documentation in place.