At JVP we take health and safety very seriously and where ever possible we like to show this to our clients by external verification, we have been a SafeContractor approved company for many years (8) in all the services we offer (commercial window cleaning, cladding cleaning, facade cleaning, pressure washing, gutter cleaning and gum removal), for the last four years we have also been approved by ContractorPlus, we looked into what other health and safety accreditations that our client look out for in helping them vet new suppliers.

When asked by a new customer if we were CHAS approved we looked into CHAS further and decided to go through the vetting procedure as we like the service they were offering to buyers and suppliers, to try and make the vetting process easier and more effective.

Background 

In 1997 a group of health and safety and procurement professionals from across Great Britain worked with the Association of London Government (ALG) to develop CHAS. In 2001 CHAS became a web-based system.

CHAS started with two main aims.

  1. To improve health and safety standards across Great Britain.
  2. To reduce duplicated safety applications for both suppliers and buyers.

These days we have more than 500 public and private sector buyer organisations, such as councils, housing associations, NHS trusts, including a growing number of large private companies who employ sub-contractors.

Principles and Purpose 

Each month thousands of contractors and consultants (suppliers) apply for work with public and private sector organisations (buyers). To win work, they must meet the buyer’s health and safety standards.

Assessing supplier’s health and safety competence is usually a lengthy and time consuming process. Suppliers can sometimes meet one buyer’s Health and Safety standards but not another. Being CHAS approved reduces duplication as suppliers compliance is accepted by all CHAS buyers.

CHAS assesses applicants:

  1. Health and safety policy statement;
  2. Their organisation for health and safety;
  3. Their specific health and safety arrangements to a standard acceptable to our buyers and to others.

Following a lengthy health and safety questionnaire and approval of health and safety policy, organisation and arrangements we are happy to have been awarded CHAS approval and have been placed on the national database.