Contractor Pre-Qualification what is it?

You’ve never had an accident (well only minor incidents that no one else knew about anyway), and suddenly you have been asked to supply lots of health and safety information for something called a Contractor Prequalification. You have never been asked for this before, and now everyone wants it. They’ve asked for your insurance details, your qualifications, a safety plan and policy, and what the heck is an LTIFR. What on earth is going on?

Well, in short, there has been a change in health and safety legislation, and there is now a greater responsibility for companies to make sure those they are employing, are qualified and competent to do the work (whether that is staff, contractors or subcontractors). Companies can no longer rely on “I know he can do the job, he is a mate.”

You do need to be able to do is be able to prove that you are taking all reasonable and practicable steps to manage the health and safety risks in your business.

So aside from the usual contact and communication details what do they want to know:
• Insurance details: If something goes drastically wrong with the job the contracting company will want to know that you can cover costs of fixing the problem or that a court fine (if it goes to that) won’t put you out of business. So, they will ask you how much indemnity and public liability your insurance you have cover for.

•  Health and Safety Policy and or manuals: The company will check that you have systems in place to help you maintain good health and safety while you are on site.
• Site specific safety plan (SSSP): If you are working in the construction industry you may be asked for a SSSP. This is basically a summary of your health and safety contractor processes and includes how you will manage health and safety on a specific site.
• Hazard / Risk Register: The company will want to know that you understand the hazards and risks involved in your work and how you control these
• Worksafe NZ notifications and improvement notices: Your past health and safety record will give the company and understanding of how they can expect you to perform on the job and the improvements you have made since the notifications.
• Health and safety performance: This includes how many injuries you have had in the past, how serious they have been and how frequent you have had them. For example, how many serious injuries such as Lost Time Injuries (LTI) have you had in the past 12 months, and what is the frequency rate of these LTI’S (LTIFR).

This can all sound a bit daunting if you haven’t had to do it before, but like all things, once you get the hang of what is wanted and why, and where you have the information, you will find it becomes easier over time.

Smart Safety Solutions specialises in customised safety systems for businesses, to make them relevant to both your business and your employees. If you would like some help pulling your contractor health and safety Tender documents together, need a SSSP or have a contractor prequalification form to fill in and don’t know where to start, or you simply want to ask a couple of questions, then give Steve or Susan a call today and see how we can help you.

Remember safety just doesn’t have to be that hard!