Contractor work is roughly twice as risky as direct employee work, and HSE issued £26.9 million in health and safety fines in a single recent year. For an Operations Director running a maintenance programme across multiple sites, the exposure rarely comes from your own engineers — it comes from the contractor whose RAMS nobody read properly, whose induction was a five-minute chat at the gate, and whose insurance certificate expired three months ago without anyone noticing. A CMMS like OxMaint turns contractor pre-qualification, induction, RAMS approval, and permit checks into one auditable system instead of five disconnected spreadsheets.
Replace Contractor Spreadsheets With One Compliance System
Pre-qualification records, induction sign-off, RAMS approval, and permit checks — tracked automatically for every contractor on every site.
Why Contractor Risk Sits With You, Not Just Them
Under CDM 2015 Regulation 8, anyone appointing a contractor must take reasonable steps to satisfy themselves that the contractor has the skills, knowledge, experience, and organisational capability for the work. You cannot simply accept a quote and assume competence. If a contractor causes an incident on your site and you cannot show how you checked them before they started, the liability does not stay with the contractor alone.
HSE's HSG159 guidance sets out the same expectation in plain terms: plan the job, select the right contractor, control the work on site, check it as it happens, and review performance afterwards. Most contractor incidents trace back to a gap in one of these five stages, not a single dramatic failure.
The Five Stages of Contractor Management
Plan
Define the task, the hazards, and whether the job can be done safely at all before a contractor is approached.
Select
Pre-qualify on competence, insurance, and accreditation — not just price and availability.
Control
Induct, brief, and permit the work before anyone picks up a tool on your site.
Check
Monitor the work as it happens, not only at the start or after something goes wrong.
Review
Score performance after the job so the next selection decision is based on evidence, not memory.
Pre-Qualification: Making Sense of SSIP, CHAS and the PQQ Landscape
PAS 91, the old standardised pre-qualification questionnaire, was formally withdrawn by BSI in 2023. It has been superseded by the Common Assessment Standard, which most major principal contractors and public sector buyers now reference. SSIP remains the umbrella framework — accreditation through any SSIP member scheme is mutually recognised by the others, so a contractor does not need five separate certificates to prove the same health and safety competence.
| Scheme / Standard | What It Covers | Typical Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| SSIP (umbrella) | Core health and safety criteria, mutually recognised | Baseline check before any contractor is engaged |
| CHAS / SafeContractor / SMAS | SSIP member schemes assessing the same core criteria | Accept any one in lieu of a bespoke H&S assessment |
| Common Assessment Standard | H&S plus financial, governance, and operational compliance | Public sector and major principal contractor tenders |
| CDM 2015 Regulation 8 | Legal duty to verify skills, knowledge, and capability | Applies regardless of which scheme a contractor holds |
A scheme certificate is a point-in-time assessment, not a guarantee of conduct on the day. It tells you the contractor passed an audit last year — it does not tell you their RAMS for this specific job is adequate, or that the engineer turning up tomorrow has been briefed on your site's hazards. Book a demo to see how OxMaint layers job-specific checks on top of scheme accreditation.
Induction and RAMS: Where Generic Documents Fail
The Downloaded RAMS
A risk assessment and method statement that was clearly copied from a template and never adapted to the actual task, site, or hazards present.
The Five-Minute Induction
A generic safety briefing delivered at the gate that never reaches the specific hazards of the job the contractor is actually there to do.
The Expired Document
Insurance, training certificates, or accreditation that lapsed months ago and nobody flagged before the contractor was let back on site.
The Cost of Getting Contractor Management Wrong
How OxMaint Manages Contractors End to End
Contractor Portal
A self-service portal where contractors upload accreditation, insurance, RAMS, and training records before they ever reach your site.
Digital Induction & Sign-Off
Site-specific induction content with recorded completion, so every contractor's briefing is matched to the job they are actually doing.
RAMS Approval Workflow
Route every RAMS submission through a defined approval step before a permit can be issued for the work it covers.
Expiry Alerts & Audit Trail
Automatic alerts before insurance, accreditation, or training lapses, with a timestamped record ready for any audit or investigation.
Know Every Contractor on Site Is Competent, Compliant and Current
Pre-qualification, induction, RAMS approval, and permit checks — one system that gives Operations Directors an audit-ready answer every time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is PAS 91 still used for contractor pre-qualification?
No. PAS 91 was formally withdrawn by BSI in April 2023. Most major principal contractors and public sector buyers now reference the Common Assessment Standard instead, although SSIP accreditation still satisfies the health and safety baseline within it.
Does SSIP accreditation mean a contractor is automatically compliant on our site?
No. SSIP accreditation confirms a point-in-time health and safety assessment was passed. It does not replace job-specific RAMS review, site induction, or your duty under CDM 2015 to verify competence for the actual work being carried out.
Who is legally responsible if a contractor causes an incident on our site?
Responsibility is shared. As the appointing organisation, you retain a duty under CDM 2015 to have taken reasonable steps to verify the contractor's competence, alongside the contractor's own duties to work safely.
What should a contractor induction actually cover?
Site-specific hazards, emergency procedures, permit-to-work requirements, and welfare arrangements for the exact task being carried out — not a generic deck reused for every contractor regardless of trade or risk level.
How often should contractor documentation be reviewed?
Insurance, accreditation, and training records should be checked before every engagement and monitored continuously for expiry, since a certificate that was valid at onboarding can lapse well before the contractor's next visit.
