Insight 17 April 2023

Common Assessment Standard questions to expect when seeking certification

In this guide, we list down some of the Common Assessment Standard questions to prepare for when seeking certification.

The Common Assessment Standard is arguably the most important development in contractor certification and risk management over the last decade. Covering 13 areas of risk management, it’s also the most comprehensive prequalification questionnaire (PQQ) system to date.

One of the Common Assessment Standard aims is to standardise the existing landscape of prequalification and supply chain management in the construction industry, helping both contractors (suppliers) and clients (suppliers) save time and money to the tune of £1 billion a year.

At CHAS, the Common Assessment Standard is the centrepiece of our CHAS Elite membership — representing the highest level of certification CHAS members can achieve. But how exactly does this process work?

Before that, let’s first dive into what exactly the Common Assessment Standard is.

What Is The Common Assessment Standard?

common assessment standard logo - CHAS

Image by Build UK

The Common Assessment Standard is a certification scheme created by industry experts, Build UK, in partnership with the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA). It aims to create a single, uniform standard to drive procurement efficiencies and reduce supply chain management costs across the construction sector.

Related reading: What is the Common Assessment Standard?

Launched softly in 2019, the Common Assessment Standard builds on existing PQQ schemes, such as PAS91, and replaces multiple process levels that are often redundant and time-consuming. It comprises an industry-agreed question set covering compliance across 13 areas of potential risks:

Health and Safety
Identity
Financial
Insurance
Corporate and professional standing
Anti-bribery and corruption
Modern slavery
Environmental
Quality management
Equality
Corporate social responsibility
Information security and data protection
Building information modelling

Build UK has divided the Common Assessment Standard question set into 10 sections for efficiency and convenience. These questions have matching assessment criteria, enabling reliable risk assessment against the new framework.

What common assessment standard questions can you expect?

Build UK offers a convenient question set guide for contractors looking to achieve the Common Assessment Standard. The question is divided into two primary categories:

1. Mandatory questions

All mandatory questions in the Common Assessment Standard question set are based on the questions from PAS 91, which BSI publishes. Failure to complete these questions will disqualify you from achieving the Common Assessment Standard.

2. Advisory questions

The Common Assessment Standard question set also comes with additional industry-agreed questions that expand the focus of the mandatory questions.

Whilst your company does not have to complete these questions to achieve the Common Assessment Standard, any unanswered advisory questions will be flagged when your verified prequalification data is shared with clients.

Exemptions

Your company may be exempt from answering certain questions depending on the following conditions:

You already have existing certifications from recognised third-parties, such as ISO standards.
The questions are not relevant to the nature of your business. For example, questions about employing subcontractors are irrelevant to sole traders.

Note that responding to the questions in the Common Assessment Standard question set is just the first step. You will also have to provide documents when answering questions as evidence of your compliance and risk management activities.

Examples of common assessment standard questions

Identity

On top of questions about your business name, registration number and other pertinent details about your organisation, you’ll be asked mandatory questions to verify your organisation’s identity, such as:

Are you a micro, a small or a medium-sized enterprise?
Is your organisation a sheltered workshop, a social enterprise, or will it provide for the performance of the contract in the context of sheltered employment programmes?
What is the corresponding percentage of disabled or disadvantaged workers?

Advisory questions under this section include:

What types of construction trades/work does your company conduct?
Do you have any associated or group companies?
Do you employ subcontractors?

Financial section

In this section, you’ll be asked mandatory questions about your company’s financial information, including:

Accounts for the last two years, depending on your type of organisation (e.g., startup, sole trader, partnership, small business, medium to large enterprise)
Insurance (e.g., employers’ liability, public liability, and professional indemnity insurances)

Advisory questions under this section include:

Do you have contractors all risk insurance?
Do you check whether your sub-contractors are financially stable?

Corporate and professional standing section

In this section, you’ll be asked questions about your organisation’s legal history. These include:

Has your company or any of its decision-makers been the subject of criminal or civil court action related to your business activities?
Over the past five years, anywhere in the world, have you, your organisation or any person with powers of representation, decision or control in the organisation been convicted of any of these offences?
- Participation in a criminal organisation
- Corruption
- Fraud
- (See Build UK’s question set guide for the full list of offences).

Advisory questions under this section include:

Has your organisation or any of its decision-makers been the subject of debarment or professional suspension?
Do you have an anti-bribery and corruption policy?

Health and safety section

You’ll be asked questions to demonstrate that your company has taken steps to protect your employees, site visitors and the public from health and safety hazards. These questions include:

Do you hold one or more of the following certificates?
- Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP) scheme certificate
- BS OHSAS 18001 (or equivalent) certificate
- Certificate equivalent to that of PAS 91.
Do you have a health and safety policy?

Advisory questions include:

Do you have a drug and alcohol policy?
Is your company part of any fleet operations/management scheme?

Environmental section

In this section, you’ll be asked questions to determine how serious your company is in embracing environmental sustainability. Questions include:

Do you have a valid BS EN ISO 14001 (or equivalent) certificate or a valid EMAS certificate?
Do you have an environmental management policy?

Examples of advisory questions include:

Do you have access to reliable environmental advice on environmental issues?
Do you have a waste carrier, broker or dealers’ licence, or are you a registered professional carrier and transporter of waste?

Quality section

Questions in this section are designed to assess your quality control and quality assurance capabilities. These questions include:

Do you have a valid BS EN ISO 9001 (or equivalent) certificate?
Do you have a quality management policy?

Advisory questions in this section include:

Who is responsible for quality within your company?
Can you demonstrate compliance with the Construction Products Regulations (CE Marking)?
Do you have risk management policies, procedures and systems?

Equality section

This section seeks to determine what practices and policies your company has to prevent discrimination and uphold equality of opportunity. Questions in this section include:

Do you meet the requirements of the positive equality duties outlined in the Equality Act 2010?
Do you have an equality policy?

Advisory questions include:

Do you have evidence that your equality policies have made a difference?
Does your company have arrangements to ensure that equality and diversity are embedded in your practices?

Corporate social responsibility section

The majority of questions relating to your corporate and social responsibility are advisory in nature and designed to verify whether your business operates a socially responsible business agenda. These questions include:

Do you have a corporate social responsibility policy?
Do you have an anti-slavery and human trafficking statement?
Do you have an anti-bullying policy?
Is your entire supply chain comply aware of, and abides by, anti-modern slavery laws?

Information security section

This section covers various questions designed to verify your company’s compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines. These questions include:

Have you had any data protection law breaches in the last five years?
Have you documented the personal data you hold, where it came from and who you share it with?
Do you maintain appropriate records and registers of your data processing activities?

Advisory questions include:

Have you had any data protection law breaches in the last five years?
Do you have a data protection policy and privacy notice in place?
Do you carry out data protection training for staff?

Information management section

Finally, questions in this section aim to assess your ability to support supply chains and construction projects that depend on BIM capabilities. These questions include:

Do you have the capability of working with a project using a “Common Data Environment”?
Do you have a documented policy, systems and procedures to achieve “Level 2 BIM” maturity?
Do you have arrangements for providing BIM training to employees?

Advisory questions in this section include:

Do you develop or manage design information?
How does your organisation control design information?

I’ve completed the question set — what now?

Once you’ve completed the Common Assessment Standard question set, CHAS will proceed to audit the information you provided. We offer two options for doing this:

Desktop audit — CHAS will verify the information against the relevant assessment standards remotely.
Site-based audit — A CHAS auditor will visit your facilities to verify the implementation of your risk management policies.

A successful audit will result in your company achieving the Common Assessment Standard. We will then send you a certificate and a welcome pack (this includes stickers and a digital asset pack), so you can share your successful certification. You will have to renew your certification annually to maintain your Common Assessment Standard certification.

Follow the CHAS blog to get more tips and insights on achieving the Common Assessment Standard. Sign up for CHAS Elite membership for our full suite of assessment services across 13 areas of risk management.

Not sure where to start? Learn how the membership process works by reading our guide to joining CHAS.

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