Construction Health & Safety News, Advice and Information from PP Construction Safety

PAS91:2013 to reduce burden of pre-qual on construction supply chain

The revised ‘publicly available specification’  PAS91: 2013 is sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) which includes health and safety pre-qualification criteria based on those currently in the CDM ACoP.

HSE is considering withdrawing / revising the CDM ACoP which may make PAS 91 a more important document regarding health and safety competence assessment.

Martin Drinkall, supply chain manager at Kier Construction Ltd said:

“Kier fully endorses PAS91:2013 as part of our vendor prequalification. We are working closely with Constructionline to ensure that the burden and costs, borne by SMEs, of multiple or repeated prequalification, are greatly reduced.”

PAS 91: 2013 was published on 8 April 2013 and Constructionline (Public-Private Partnership between Capita and the Department for Business Innovation & Skills) have adopted the updated PAS91 as the basis of their pre-qualification questionnaire.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) now included

Philip Prince, a director at Constructionline, commented:

“The updated version of PAS91:2013 is a positive step forward in reducing the burden of pre-qualification on the construction industry’s supply chain. By providing a standardised pre-qualification question set, it aims to solve the common problem of suppliers having to complete a variety of different questionnaires in order to pre-qualify for work.

The new question set looks to simplify the pre-qualification process by allowing suppliers to “copy and paste” the same set of pre-prepared responses for all buyers. When you consider the amount of pre-qualification questionnaires (PQQs) that suppliers are required to submit in order to maintain a steady pipeline of work and the associated costs which can run into the thousands, adopting PAS91 is ever more important in ensuring the livelihood of suppliers – particularly SMEs.

The updated version of PAS91 also includes an additional Building Information Modelling (BIM) section for projects requiring it, as well as defence and security questions for those suppliers wishing to work for the Ministry of Defence (MOD).”

Question set mandated for central government departments

Philip Prince continued:

“The government has recommended use of PAS91 in the Government Construction Strategy and Common Minimum Standards for construction procurement – with the question set already mandated for central government departments. The latest Government Construction Strategy update also recommends that the entire supply chain adopts the new question set.

Simplifying the pre-qualification process is the very essence of what Constructionline stands for, which is why we have adopted the new version of PAS91 as the basis of our own pre-qualification questionnaire. This means the 2,500 buyers already using Constructionline to source pre-qualified suppliers are well on their way to becoming PAS91 compliant and new suppliers are now able to use their pre-prepared PAS91 answers to join the scheme.

What matters now is that the whole industry works collaboratively to promote the importance of PAS91 and encourages wider adoption among buyers. This will open up more opportunities to SMEs and help ensure the construction industry remains buoyant during these difficult economic times.”

This article was posted on 23rd April 2013