What is SSIP accreditation?
SSIP, Safety Schemes in Procurement, is the umbrella body under which member health and safety pre-qualification schemes recognise each other's assessments, so a supplier assessed by one member should not have to be assessed from scratch by another. Strictly there is no such thing as SSIP accreditation: you are assessed by a member scheme, and SSIP is the mutual recognition arrangement sitting over the top.
The distinction is not pedantry, because it changes what you buy and what you show a buyer. SSIP does not assess anyone itself. Its members do, against a shared set of core criteria, and SSIP runs a free portal where a buyer can check that a certificate is current.
- SSIP is the umbrella body, not a scheme. Your certificate comes from a member scheme, not from SSIP.
- Member schemes assess against the shared SSIP Core Criteria, so assessments are intended to be equivalent.
- Mutual recognition is called Deem to Satisfy: another member's current assessment should be accepted rather than repeated.
- Members include inspection bodies doing desktop assessments and certification bodies issuing ISO 45001 under the SSIP sector scheme.
- Deem to Satisfy binds member schemes, not buyers. Many main contractors still name the specific scheme their policy references.
How SSIP actually works
Three moving parts, and buyers routinely conflate them.
- The member scheme assesses you and issues the certificate. CHAS, SafeContractor and SMAS Worksafe are among the better known registered members, but the directory changes, so check the current list.
- SSIP sets the Core Criteria members assess against, and runs the register where a certificate can be verified free of charge.
- The buyer decides what it will accept. Mutual recognition is a commitment between schemes, not a legal obligation on a private buyer.
Where UKAS accreditation appears it sits behind the members rather than behind SSIP itself. It is voluntary for member inspection bodies carrying out desktop assessments and only a minority hold ISO/IEC 17020, so check the individual scheme rather than assuming. The exception is the ISO 45001 route, where SSIP requires the certification body to be an accredited member holding the SSIP sector scheme approval.
The SSIP Core Criteria
The Core Criteria are the shared question set that makes assessments comparable. They are framed as the demonstration of organisational capability and track the duties in CDM 2015. They cover:
- Health and safety policy, organisation and arrangements
- Access to competent health and safety advice
- Training and information, and individual qualifications and experience
- Monitoring, audit and review, and workforce involvement
- Accident reporting, and any enforcement action taken against the business
- Risk assessment and safe systems of work, subcontracting, and cooperating with others
- Welfare provision, plus extra criteria for designers, principal designers, principal contractors and fleet operations
The framing matters when you write the answers. The test CDM 2015 sets is skills, knowledge and experience and, for an organisation, organisational capability. The regulations deliberately dropped the word competence, and an assessor is reading for the statutory wording.
Deem to Satisfy, and where it stops working
Deem to Satisfy is SSIP's mutual recognition process. Hold a current assessment from one member scheme and another member should accept it rather than reassess you from the beginning. It works, and it removes a large amount of duplicated cost.
What it does not do is bind the buyer. A main contractor's procurement policy can name one specific scheme, and where it does, that is what you need whatever SSIP recognition says. Ask early, in writing:
- Which scheme does your procurement policy actually name?
- Will you accept another SSIP member's certificate under Deem to Satisfy?
- Will you accept ISO 45001 certification instead?
- Which assessment level do you need? A scheme name without a level is ambiguous.
SSIP, the Common Assessment Standard and ISO 45001
Three different things answering overlapping PQQ questions.
- SSIP covers health and safety only. It is the narrowest of the three and the one most often named on a construction PQQ.
- The Common Assessment Standard, run by Build UK, is a broader question set covering health and safety alongside quality, environmental and financial areas, certified by a small number of Recognised Assessment Bodies at desktop or site-based level. Public sector buyers may use it to pre-qualify suppliers for construction works where the Act's requirements are met, and it took over the ground held by PAS 91, which has been withdrawn.
- ISO 45001 is a management system certification. Some certification bodies are SSIP members and issue it under the SSIP sector scheme, in which case the certificate carries SSIP recognition too.
Common questions
Is SSIP a legal requirement?
No. SSIP is a procurement arrangement, not legislation, and nothing in CDM 2015 or any other regulation requires an SSIP assessment. What the law requires is that whoever appoints a contractor takes reasonable steps to satisfy themselves the contractor has the skills, knowledge and experience and, for an organisation, the organisational capability for the role. An SSIP assessment is one common way of evidencing that.
Which SSIP scheme should I choose?
Ask your main customers before comparing prices. Member assessments are meant to be equivalent under the Core Criteria, so the real differentiators are which scheme your buyers already name in their own policies and what an assessment costs for your size of business. Choosing on price and then being told to hold a different scheme is the expensive outcome.
Does an SSIP assessment expire?
Member scheme assessments are time-limited and typically run for a year before reassessment. That is exactly why a certificate scan is weak evidence in a PQQ and a verifiable registration is stronger. The SSIP portal shows current status free of charge, whereas a PDF shows only the position on the day it was issued.
What is Deem to Satisfy?
Deem to Satisfy is SSIP's mutual recognition process. A supplier holding a current assessment from one member scheme can ask another member to accept it instead of running a fresh one. It operates between member schemes; it does not compel an individual buyer to accept a scheme its own procurement policy does not name.
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