Checking that a contractor is still allowed on site

Contractor insurance lapses quietly, and qualifications expire on dates nobody is watching. The failure is always found the same way: after an incident, when somebody asks for the certificate and discovers it ran out in March.

What to hold per contractor

• •Public and employer liability insurance, with the expiry date and the amount
• •Professional indemnity where the work involves design or advice
• •Trade qualifications and registrations for the people who actually attend
• •Any safety accreditation your organisation requires
• •Method statements and risk assessments for the work they do
• •Named individuals approved to work on site, where access is controlled

Diary the expiry, and make it block work

A reminder six weeks out and again at two weeks is the mechanism. The stronger control is that issuing work to a contractor with lapsed cover is prevented rather than discouraged. Where that cannot be enforced by software, it has to be a step in the process with a name against it.

Check the person, not only the company

A company can hold every accreditation while the individual who turns up is not qualified for the task. For work where the qualification is personal, gas, electrical, refrigerant handling, lifting, high voltage, the record has to be against the person and checked at the door.

Keep the version that was current on the day

When an incident is investigated, the question is what cover existed on the date of the work, not what exists now. Keep superseded certificates with their date ranges rather than overwriting them. This costs nothing and is impossible to reconstruct afterwards.

Make it part of the same record as the work

Certificates in a procurement folder and work in a maintenance system means nobody checks at the point that matters. Attached to the contractor in the system that issues the job, the check happens automatically every time work is assigned.

Review annually against who is actually working

Every estate has contractors attending regularly who were approved years ago for something else, and small firms doing good work who were never formally approved at all. An annual reconciliation of who attended against who is approved finds both, and it usually takes an afternoon.