RAMS for SafeContractor Accreditation

SafeContractor (run by Alcumus) is an SSIP-member accreditation widely required by facilities-management clients, retailers and property managers. The assessment checks health and safety, financial and ethical practices — with risk assessments and method statements as a core document request, tailored to the work you actually do.

What SafeContractor's own guidance asks for

Unusually among the schemes, SafeContractor publishes guidance notes spelling out what it expects a risk assessment and method statement to contain:

• Risk assessments must be either site/project-specific (lasting the project) or generic and reviewed at least annually, and must identify the hazards, who could be harmed and how, the control measures, and the residual risk rated high/medium/low.
• Method statements must come from an up-to-date, identifiable, accountable source; set out the sequence of works; list the associated risks and their control measures; and state that deviation from the method requires authorisation.

Recording your risk assessment is a legal duty at five or more employees, and recommended for everyone.

Plans and turnaround

SafeContractor sells Express, Standard and Premier plans but doesn't publish full prices — you get a quote based on business size and trade (entry figures around the low-£400s +VAT, plus a joining fee). The Express plan commits to assessment review within 2 working days; a standard end-to-end accreditation typically takes a few weeks. Each contractor is asked only the questions relevant to their work, once a year.

The RAMS requirement is the same across every SSIP scheme

CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS Worksafe and Constructionline's health and safety assessment all assess against the same SSIP Core Criteria — the HSE-recognised standard behind UK contractor pre-qualification. The RAMS evidence lives in Core Criterion 10: "Risk Assessment Leading to Safe System of Work", which asks for:

• Site or project-specific risk assessments created for a project within the last 12 months
• Safe systems of work or method statements for a project within the last 12 months (where applicable)
• COSHH assessments for any hazardous substances used (where applicable)

Two details catch small contractors out. First, the assessments must be site or project-specific — a generic template with no job details doesn't meet the wording. Second, they must be recent: RAMS older than 12 months don't count as evidence. If you employ four or fewer people and don't have written arrangements, SSIP allows you to describe verbally how you identify hazards and produce safe systems of work — but in practice a written, job-specific RAMS set is the simplest way to pass the criterion without discussion.

No scheme publishes an exact number of sample documents to submit. Assessors ask for examples relevant to the work you actually do, so the safe preparation is one complete, recent, job-specific RAMS (with COSHH where relevant) for each of your main work activities.

Preparing your RAMS evidence with RamsDocs

The recurring stumbling block reported by consultancies that help contractors through SafeContractor applications is generic, copy-paste RAMS — documents that don't reference the actual work, site or controls. That is exactly what RamsDocs is built to avoid: pick the template for the task, and the builder produces a site-specific RAMS with the hazards, sequencing, control measures and COSHH triggers for that job, exported as a clean PDF.

To be clear about what that does and doesn't mean: RamsDocs prepares the documents assessors review — it is not endorsed by SafeContractor and no document can guarantee an assessment outcome. You remain the competent person who reviews and signs off the content. What it removes is the blank-Word-document problem: your evidence set is job-specific and dated within the last 12 months by construction, not assembled the night before the assessment.

Already hold another SSIP certificate?

SSIP runs mutual recognition ("Deem to Satisfy"): a valid certificate from one SSIP Registered Member is accepted by the others, so you usually don't repeat the full assessment — though the receiving scheme can still ask for supplementary information such as insurances. If you're choosing your first scheme, pick the one your client actually asks for; the RAMS evidence you prepare is the same either way.

Preparing for a different scheme? See CHAS, SMAS Worksafe and Constructionline.