We assist a number of clients to complete a wide range of compliance scheme questionnaires and stress to the clients the importance of being well organised. One client has recently seen the benefits of keeping evidence well filed as the schemes have in the past tied her in knots and just left her frustrated and calling us for help.

These schemes generally want businesses to provide evidence that it has up to date policies and procedures in place and can show evidence of undertaking site or job specific risk assessments. What the schemes also want to see is more than just the standard generic take anywhere assessment; they want evidence that the business knows how to control its risks.

That means providing a range of risk assessments that cover in sufficient detail activities such as manual handling, working at height, COSHH etc. More recently the schemes are also asking for procedures to support how these assessments are applied.

Another key area is to be able to demonstrate that when something does go wrong that this information is captured and used to determine if an investigation is needed. It is important to know that just providing zero accident and near miss data is unlikely to help a business gain accreditation; the schemes are generally unlikely to believe this.

So if you want to pass then it’s about having robust health & safety systems in place and being able to demonstrate how your business applies these systems in practice. Above all else make sure you collect the evidence in a place that is simple to retrieve and helps promote your business is health & safety aware.