Contractors looking to win public sector contracts will need to comply with guidelines covered in Common Assessment Standard and PAS 91 accreditations in addition to SSIP and health and safety requirements.
The changes will come into effect from 1 April following the release of Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 03/23, which updates the Selection Questionnaire and replaces PPN 08/16.
The Common Assessment Standard is a comprehensive industry-approved questionnaire that has quickly become the elite standard for prequalification in construction procurement. Specifying the Common Assessment Standards means, via a single assessment, organisations can assess the capability of their suppliers across 13 pertinent compliance topics, including: Anti-Bribery and Corruption, Building Information Modelling (BIM), Data Protection, Equality & Diversity, Financial Information, Modern Slavery and Quality, Corporate Social Responsibility, Information Management and Information Security.
Meanwhile, PAS 91 is a standardised prequalification questionnaire (PQQ) developed by the British Standards Institute (BSI), that goes beyond SSIP to cover some of the topics included in the Common Assessment Standard.
Ian McKinnon, managing director of CHAS, commented: “The updates to Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 08/16 are a clear signal of the government’s commitment to responsible public procurement and a further incentive for contractors to strive for greater levels of compliance.
“We are proud of the huge number of CHAS Contractors already accredited to the Common Assessment Standard (CHAS Elite) and PAS 91 (CHAS Advanced) and of the many more who are currently working with CHAS towards reaching these standards.
“At CHAS, we believe the industry must work together to raise levels of supply chain risk management, and as ever, we are ready to support organisations looking to source responsible suppliers via our free CHAS Client portal.”
