Dave on "CHAS"

It’s a well known fact that, in order to win work from many public and private sector organisations, builders have to demonstrate they meet stringent health and safety criteria before being awarded a contract.

However before any organisation will award any firm some work it will want to check the health and safety standards of those they might employ.

But assessing a potential builder’s health and safety competence is usually a lengthy and time consuming process. Not only that builders can sometimes meet one organisation’s health and safety standards but not another!

As a result builders wanting to win more public and private sector work are being advised to become CHAS (Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme) compliant.

That’s the view according to Dave Price an independent health and safety consultant who believes that becoming CHAS compliant will make builders much more attractive to potential customers.

But what is CHAS and what are the benefits?

Set up in 1998 CHAS provides contractors with a benchmark in health and safety competence, which many clients now insist upon before invitation to tender or the awarding of a contract.

Covering many aspects, the CHAS assessment includes health and safety policy statement, organisation for health and safety and specific health and safety arrangements to a standard acceptable to clients.

Dave said: “There is little doubt that this type of benchmarking will eventually lead to a considerable improvement in health and safety standards across the construction industry.

“With hundreds of public and private sector organisations, such as councils, housing associations, NHS trusts and a growing number of large private companies who employ sub-contractors, already signed up, not being CHAS compliant automatically counts out many builders from winning work with these types of organisations.”

According to Dave, becoming CHAS compliant isn’t as difficult as may first seem and recommends builders use HBXL’s Health & Safety Xpert software to help them on the road to compliance.

Dave added: “HBXL’s Health and Safety Xpert software is dedicated to improving health and safety standards on site and it is no coincidence that it ticks most of the boxes required for the CHAS assessment.

“The software has been refined since its initial launch and covers topics that are specifically mentioned in the CHAS assessment.

“This includes Company Policy, Risk and COSHH assessments, Accident reporting, Assessing sub-contractor competence, Work equipment and plant inspections, Electrical safety, Emergency arrangements, Manual handling and Asbestos.”

As well as assisting with CHAS, Health & Safety Xpert has radically improved the way builders approach all their legal health and safety obligations. The software saves builders huge amounts of time, quickly guiding them through the crucial paper work that’s required under current UK law, including the Health & Safety At Work Act 1974 and Construction Design Management (CDM) Regulations.

Developed in partnership with leading health and safety professionals, Health & Safety Xpert encourages an active approach to health and safety on building sites across the country.

All users have to do is tell Health & Safety Xpert what they are building and it simply does the rest. As well as documents needed for CHAS it automatically produces Company Health & Safety Policies, Method statements, Site Inductions, F10 form, Construction Phase Health & Safety Plans and many more essential documents.

Dave added: “Building companies have a legal obligation to demonstrate that they take their responsibilities seriously and that they have done as much as is reasonably practicable to safe guard their employees, subcontractors and general public.

“It has already proved to have saved builders huge amounts of time, quickly guiding them through the crucial paper work that’s required under current UK law.

“My view is if builders have any concerns regarding their ability to meet the CHAS standard then they should purchase Health & Safety Xpert and take a major step in the right direction.”