Contractor Prequalification And Onboarding: Meeting Building Safety Act And CDM 2015 Standards

The construction industry is navigating a compliance landscape that has never been more demanding. With the Building Safety Act 2022 alongside CDM 2015, hiring clients must be able to prove the competence of every contractor they engage.

Prequalification and onboarding are no longer box-ticking exercises. They are the foundation of safe, compliant, and efficient project delivery.

Why Prequalification Matters

Prequalification is the process of verifying a contractor’s competence before they are permitted to bid for or begin work on a project. Traditionally, it focused on health and safety, but today it extends across a much broader range of compliance areas, including environmental management, financial stability, anti-bribery measures, and modern slavery.

For clients, prequalification reduces risk by ensuring that only competent contractors are eligible to work. It also provides a consistent, auditable framework for demonstrating compliance. For contractors, achieving prequalification demonstrates reliability, opens doors to more tenders, and can help build trust with clients.

In short, prequalification strengthens supply chains by making them safer and more transparent.

The Building Safety Act: Raising The Bar For Contractor Onboarding

The Building Safety Act 2022 was introduced in response to the Grenfell tragedy, setting a new benchmark for accountability across the construction sector. One of its most important features is the emphasis it places on duty holders such as clients, principal designers, and principal contractors. It clearly spells out the shared responsibility of ensuring competence across every stage of a project.

For hiring clients, this means:

• Robust contractor prequalification to check skills, knowledge, experience, and training (SKET)
• Stricter contractor onboarding processes, with clear records of who is responsible for what
• Digital records of building information are created and maintained throughout a project’s lifecycle.

Failure to meet these obligations can result in serious consequences, including reputational damage, lost revenue, and personal liability for directors and duty holders.

For support with the contractor onboarding process, download the Veriforce CHAS Building Safety Act Compliance Guide.

CDM 2015: Longstanding Duties Reinforced

While the Building Safety Act is relatively new, the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 remain a cornerstone of UK construction law. These regulations require clients to appoint competent duty holders, ensure construction phase plans are in place, provide welfare facilities, and coordinate health and safety across all parties involved.

This is where prequalification becomes critical, as clients must demonstrate that contractors and designers are competent before they’re appointed. Prequalification provides the evidence that clients need to demonstrate due diligence.

In practice, this means prequalification is a mechanism that allows clients to meet their legal duties under CDM 2015 and, now, the Building Safety Act.

Related Reading: A Complete Guide To The Construction (Design And Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015)

Contractor Onboarding: From Policy To Practice

A modern contractor onboarding process must go beyond collecting paperwork. It should establish a consistent, evidence-based system for vetting, approving, and monitoring contractors at every stage of a project. Done well, onboarding becomes a compliance safeguard and a practical risk management tool.

Verification Of Competence

Before a contractor sets foot on site, clients have a legal duty to ensure their competence. This means verifying skills, knowledge, experience, and training (SKET).

Prequalification plays a central role here. By requiring evidence of qualifications, training records, accident history and references, clients can demonstrate due diligence when appointing duty holders. This aligns with HSE’s guidance on assessing competence and helps reduce the risk of unsafe practices being introduced on site.

Health And Safety Checks

Robust onboarding should also include verification of a contractor’s health and safety management systems. One way to streamline this is through SSIP certification or, for larger projects, compliance with the Common Assessment Standard.

These recognised schemes give clients confidence that core health and safety requirements have been met, while also reducing duplication for contractors who would otherwise face multiple prequalification demands from different buyers.

Golden Thread Compliance

The golden thread refers to the accurate and secure digital record of information about a building, maintained throughout its lifecycle. For contractor onboarding, this means:

• Capturing accurate data at the start of a project
• Storing evidence of competence, certifications, and risk assessments in a secure, accessible format
• Ensuring that information is updated as work progresses.

This digital approach ensures accountability, enhances transparency, and facilitates the demonstration of compliance during audits or regulatory inspections.

Ongoing Monitoring

Onboarding isn’t a one-time event. Risks change as projects evolve, and so should compliance monitoring. Regular reviews, spot checks, and updated risk assessments ensure contractors remain compliant throughout the construction phase.

Under CDM 2015, clients and principal contractors must ensure that site work continues to meet health and safety standards. A system of ongoing monitoring closes the gap between initial approval and day-to-day performance, reducing the risk of non-compliance.

Clear Communication Of Roles and Responsibilities

Successful projects depend on everyone understanding their duties. Under both the Building Safety Act and CDM 2015, specific responsibilities fall on duty holders, including clients, principal designers, principal contractors and contractors.

Onboarding should set out these responsibilities clearly from day one, ensuring contractors know:

• Who they report to
• What is expected of them under health and safety law
• How they fit into the wider project team.

This clarity improves collaboration and reduces delays caused by confusion or miscommunication.

The Role Of The Common Assessment Standard

The Common Assessment Standard was introduced to clarify and uniformly assess contractor prequalification. Instead of contractors having to complete multiple, overlapping questionnaires, the Common Assessment Standard provides a single industry-recognised framework that covers the key areas of compliance.

For clients, this reduces duplication, speeds up procurement, and provides a clear and auditable record of competence. For contractors, it lowers administrative burden and opens up opportunities to work with a broader range of clients.

Crucially, the Common Assessment Standard now includes mandatory requirements relating to building safety, meaning it directly supports organisations in meeting their obligations under the Building Safety Act

Why Outdated Processes Won’t Work

For many organisations, contractor onboarding has historically been a patchwork of manual checks, spreadsheets, and inconsistent questionnaires. While this may have once been adequate, it is no longer sufficient in today’s compliance environment.

Without a robust prequalification and onboarding process, clients risk hiring contractors who lack the required competence, failing to maintain golden thread data, or failing to fulfil their legal duties. The consequences are not only financial but can extend to regulatory penalties and even criminal liability.

Related Reading: Sourcing Suppliers: Advantages Of Prequalification Tendering

Building Safer Supply Chains

Contractor prequalification and onboarding are central to compliance with the Building Safety Act and CDM 2015, and critical to building trust in the industry.

By adopting modern frameworks such as the Common Assessment Standard and embedding strong onboarding practices, clients and contractors alike can confidently move forward to deliver safe projects and more resilient supply chains.

Learn more about your obligations under the Building Safety Act with our free guide.

Updated 7th November 2025