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Insight · Winning work

SSIP, CHAS, Constructionline
and what replaced PAS 91.

An acronym map with the money attached. Which schemes are health and safety only, which are full pre-qualification, what mutual recognition actually saves you, and why PAS 91 is no longer the answer.

Published ·6 min read·Written by Unibuild

SSIP is an umbrella body for health and safety assessment schemes, and its point is mutual recognition: an assessment by one member scheme is generally accepted by another. The Common Assessment Standard is broader pre-qualification covering finance, legal, quality and environmental as well, and it replaced PAS 91, which BSI withdrew in April 2023.

Three different things, constantly confused

Almost every firm that has tendered has been asked for some combination of these, and the schemes' own marketing does not make the distinction easy. There are three layers and they do different jobs.

  1. An assessment scheme. The organisation that actually assesses you and issues a certificate. CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS Worksafe, Acclaim, Constructionline and others.
  2. SSIP, Safety Schemes in Procurement. Not an assessor. An umbrella body whose member schemes assess health and safety to a common core, so that a certificate from one is recognised by another. Health and safety only.
  3. The Common Assessment Standard. A pre-qualification standard, not a scheme, covering a much wider set of questions and delivered through recognised assessment bodies.

So "we need SSIP" is shorthand for "we need a certificate from a scheme that is an SSIP member". You do not join SSIP. You are assessed by one of its members.

What mutual recognition actually saves you

This is the reason SSIP exists and the reason it is worth having, and it is worth understanding precisely because firms buy more assessments than they need.

Before it, a subcontractor working for six main contractors could be asked to hold six different health and safety accreditations, each with its own assessment and its own fee, all asking substantially the same questions. Mutual recognition means a main contractor accepting SSIP should accept your certificate from any member scheme rather than insisting on its own preferred one.

In practice it works most of the time and not always. Where a client insists on a specific scheme despite holding an SSIP-recognised certificate, it is worth pushing back once, politely, citing mutual recognition. A meaningful proportion of those requests are habit rather than policy.

Holding three health and safety accreditations is not three times as compliant. It is usually one accreditation and two invoices.

PAS 91 is gone, and plenty of tender documents have not noticed

PAS 91 was the publicly available specification setting a standard pre-qualification question set for construction. It was formally withdrawn by BSI in April 2023 and is no longer maintained.

What replaced it is the Common Assessment Standard, developed by Build UK with Constructionline. It builds on the same idea, a single question set so a firm is not answering the same thing repeatedly, and extends it to cover matters PAS 91 did not, including obligations arising from the Building Safety Act. Cabinet Office Procurement Policy Note 03/24 points public sector contracting authorities at it for construction works procurement.

Two practical consequences. If a tender document asks you for PAS 91, it is out of date, and the right response is to offer your Common Assessment Standard certification rather than to explain the standard is withdrawn. And if you are choosing what to invest in this year, certification against the Common Assessment Standard is the thing with a future rather than anything positioned as a PAS 91 equivalent.

Which do you actually need

Determined by who you want to work for, not by which scheme markets hardest. Four honest cases.

  • Subcontracting to main contractors, health and safety asked for. One SSIP member scheme certificate. Which one matters less than having one, so pick on price and on assessment style.
  • Tendering to public sector or larger private clients. The Common Assessment Standard, at the level they ask for. Assessment is offered at desktop and site-based levels through recognised bodies, and the level required rises with contract value and risk.
  • A specific client with a specific requirement. Ask them what they accept before you buy anything. This one sentence saves more money than any comparison of schemes.
  • Domestic and small commercial work only. Quite possibly none of it. Accreditation is a cost of entering supply chains that require it, and paying for one nobody has asked you for is a common early mistake.

What it costs, structurally

No figures here, because scheme fees vary by turnover band and are reviewed, and a number in an article read next year is worse than none. What does not change is the shape.

There is an annual assessment fee, usually banded by turnover or headcount. There is your own time preparing the evidence pack, which on a first assessment is substantial and on renewals much less. There is often a higher fee for site-based assessment than for desktop. And there is the cost of fixing whatever the assessment finds, which is a real cost and also the only part of this that makes your business better.

Get quotes from two or three member schemes before committing. The assessments cover common ground, and the prices are not the same.

What the assessment actually asks for

Whichever route, the evidence pack is broadly the same and it is the same material this site keeps returning to: your health and safety policy, risk assessments and method statements that are specific rather than generic, competence records for your people, accident and RIDDOR records, insurance, training and its renewal, plant inspection records, and evidence you monitor rather than merely document.

Firms fail on two things far more than any other. Generic RAMS that could describe any job, which is covered in RAMS that hold up. And evidence that is out of date on the day of assessment, which is the certificates that expire without anybody noticing.

Where this touches the platform

Unibuild does not assess you and has no relationship with any scheme. What it does is hold the evidence pack in a state where an assessment is an afternoon rather than a fortnight. RAMS, permits, inductions and toolbox talks sit against jobs with dates and signatures. Competence records and their expiry dates sit against people, and insurance currency against subcontractors. Incidents and site records carry the dates they happened. Fifty-eight document types are generated on your letterhead from what was captured on site. The thing that changes at assessment is not that you have more documents: it is that the assessor asks for evidence of a specific activity on a specific date and you can produce it while they wait.

Compliance and certification Documents and certificates Health and safety Reminders and expiry

Where to start, on Monday

Ask your three largest clients one question: what accreditation do you require from your supply chain, and do you accept SSIP mutual recognition. Write the answers down. Firms routinely discover they are paying for an accreditation nobody asks for and missing one that two clients require.

Then, if you hold more than one health and safety accreditation, work out why. Unless a specific client has genuinely refused mutual recognition in writing, one of them is a renewal you can stop.

Asked most often

The follow-up questions.

What a main contractor does with the certificate is in getting on a main contractor's approved list.

What is the difference between SSIP, CHAS and Constructionline?+
SSIP is an umbrella body rather than an assessor: its member schemes assess health and safety to a common core so a certificate from one is recognised by another. CHAS and Constructionline are assessment bodies that actually assess and certify you. You do not join SSIP; you are assessed by one of its members, and Constructionline also delivers the broader Common Assessment Standard.
Is PAS 91 still used?+
No. BSI formally withdrew PAS 91 in April 2023 and it is no longer maintained. It has been superseded by the Common Assessment Standard, developed by Build UK with Constructionline, which Cabinet Office PPN 03/24 points public sector construction works procurement at. If a tender document still asks for PAS 91, offer your Common Assessment Standard certification instead.
What is the Common Assessment Standard?+
The industry pre-qualification standard that replaced PAS 91, covering financial, legal, quality and environmental matters as well as health and safety. It is delivered through recognised assessment bodies at desktop and site-based levels, with the level required rising with contract value and risk. It is broader than SSIP, which is health and safety only.
Do I need more than one health and safety accreditation?+
Usually not. Mutual recognition means a client accepting SSIP should accept a certificate from any member scheme rather than insisting on its own preferred one. Holding three accreditations is generally one accreditation and two unnecessary invoices. Where a client insists despite mutual recognition, it is worth pushing back once, because many such requests are habit rather than policy.
Which accreditation should a small contractor get first?+
Ask your largest clients what they require before buying anything. Subcontracting to main contractors who ask for health and safety normally needs one SSIP member scheme certificate, and which one matters less than having one. Tendering to public sector or larger private clients points to the Common Assessment Standard. Domestic and small commercial work may need none at all.
Why do firms fail these assessments?+
Two reasons far more than any other. Generic risk assessments and method statements that could describe any job rather than the work actually being done. And evidence that has expired by the day of the assessment, because insurance, competence cards and inspection records all run out on different dates and nothing in the file changes when they do.
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