Selecting the Contractor

The process of selecting contractors is vitally important, but also quite time consuming. However, for many of us the business implication of a contract "going wrong" could be very serious, and therefore the time spent on selecting the right contractor is time well spent. Safety is only one of our loss exposures, although an important one. If we wish to be efficient we are best taking account of all the risks in our selection process, so that we don’t select someone who is excellent in safety, but can’t do the work!

One way of optimising our use of selection resources is to enter into long-term relationships with contractors, so that we do not need to select so often. This only makes it more vital that our selection process is a good one. Figure 19.3 is also taken from the Guidelines for ISRS, and gives an example of a flowchart for contractor selection.

Once again some explanation is needed to use it. The third box says "Categorise Contractor (Minimum Loss Control System Requirements). This may be as simple as a list of activities we expect the contractor to carry out to assure safety and loss control, e.g. monitoring activities. However, with the advent of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations in UK, many companies insist that a contract "Safety Plan" is prepared, even for contracts that do not fall under these regulations. However, this activity expects us to define our minimum requirements, so that we can check them against the contractor’s proposals.

Box four of the flowchart says "Pre-qualify Contractors", and once again our activities should be determined by the Risk Class of the contract. While simple references may be sufficient for Class C, we would expend more effort for Class B, and probably want independent references either from a client or a "Safety Certificate". When pre-qualifying a new contractor for a Class A contract, we would certainly wish to see them in a working situation, and may wish to have an independent audit of their capabilities and systems (e.g. by use of ICSRS).