http://www.chas.gov.uk

Principles and Purpose

Each month thousands of contractors and consultants (suppliers) apply for work with public and private sector organisations (buyers). To win work, they must meet the buyer’s health and safety standards.

Assessing suppliers health and safety competence is usually a lengthy and time consuming process. Suppliers can sometimes meet one buyer’s Health and Safety standards but not another. Being CHAS approved reduces duplication as suppliers compliance is accepted by all CHAS buyers.

CHAS assesses applicants:

1. Health and safety policy statement;
2. Their organisation for health and safety;
3. Their specific health and safety arrangements to a standard acceptable to our buyers and to others.

Background

In 1997 a group of health and safety and procurement professionals from across Great Britain worked with the Association of London Government (ALG) to develop CHAS. In 2001 CHAS became a web-based system.

CHAS started with two main aims.

1. To improve health and safety standards across Great Britain.
2. To reduce duplicated safety applications for both suppliers and buyers.

These days we have more than 400 public and private sector buyer organisations, such as councils, housing associations, NHS trusts, including a growing number of large private companies who employ sub-contractors.

CHAS Benefits

Participating in the CHAS scheme helps both suppliers and buyers.

1. Suppliers show compliance with important parts of health and safety law (the core criteria described in the CDM regulations).
2. On achieving compliance a supplier is approved to work for all of CHAS’ buyers.(Some Buyers may require “Accredited” Status)
3. Inconsistencies are reduced where some suppliers may be judged compliant by one buyer but not another.
4. CHAS gives guidance on any weaknesses in a supplier’s safety management, including how they can improve.
5. Being a CHAS supplier or buyer saves both time and resources

CHAS and Constructionline

Constructionline is the Government’s national register for suppliers. In the same way CHAS offers a tool for use in the health and safety element of pre-qualification, Constructionline provide the pre-qualification tool for use in financial standing, technical references and other areas. The CHAS management group supports the principles of a single register and so works jointly with Constructionline.

Following agreement by the then Department of Trade and Industry, CHAS and Constructionline formed a “mutual working agreement”. This describes how we will work together to provide an improved service for buyers. You can get details of that agreement by contacting us.

Both CHAS and Constructionline have their own independence and identity but our schemes are linked.