SSIP: what it is and why buyers ask for it

SSIP stands for Safety Schemes in Procurement. It is the umbrella body, founded in 2009, for the UK's health and safety pre-qualification assessment schemes. You do not register with SSIP itself; you register with one of its member schemes, such as CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS Worksafe or Constructionline's Acclaim scheme. When a tender says "SSIP membership required", it means your firm must hold a current health and safety assessment from any one of those member schemes.

The point of it: assess once, use everywhere

Before SSIP, contractors were routinely made to repeat near-identical health and safety questionnaires for different clients, each attached to a different scheme. SSIP member schemes all assess against the same set of core criteria, and they operate mutual recognition: if you hold a current assessment with one member scheme, the others recognise it (the "deem to satisfy" arrangement) rather than making you start again. Buyers can check any supplier's current status for free on the SSIP portal.

When public buyers require it

An SSIP-recognised assessment is close to universal in tenders that involve physical or site-based work: construction, maintenance, cleaning, facilities, landscaping, installation and similar. Councils and housing associations typically make it a pass-or-fail selection requirement. Notices normally name one scheme and add "or equivalent", because public buyers are expected to accept an equivalent assessment rather than insist on a single brand. Office-based and purely digital suppliers are asked for it far less often, though it can still appear on mixed contracts.

How to get it

1. Pick a member scheme. If the buyers you target habitually name one (councils often name CHAS), choosing that scheme removes any friction over equivalence, but any member scheme is valid. 2. Choose the assessment level for your size. Schemes assess proportionately for firms with fewer than five employees, reflecting the lighter documentation the law requires at that size. 3. Submit your evidence: health and safety policy, risk assessments and method statements, training records, insurance certificates, accident history. 4. Respond to the assessor. The assessor reviews the submission and raises clarifications where evidence falls short; you can usually fix and resubmit rather than fail outright.

Registration lasts twelve months and renews annually.

Cost and time

Each scheme sets its own fees, usually banded by employee count. Small firms typically pay a few hundred pounds a year; check the schemes' own sites for current prices. If your documentation is in order, assessment commonly completes within days to a few weeks. If it is not, the preparation is the real work, and it is worth doing properly once, because the same pack feeds every future renewal and most selection questionnaires.

One practical note: because of mutual recognition there is rarely a reason to pay for two SSIP member schemes at once. Hold one, keep it current, and point buyers at the SSIP portal.