Getting through the prequalification gate: Constructionline, CHAS, SSIP and the Common Assessment Standard

You priced a council school roof, or asked a regional housebuilder to put you on their list, and the reply did not mention your price. It asked for your Constructionline Gold certificate. Or your CHAS. Or your SSIP. Or your Common Assessment Standard certification, desktop level, before anyone opens the tender pack.

Those are not four separate things you have to buy. They are one gate with four names on it, stacked in layers, and the layers are only confusing because the people selling certificates have no reason to explain how little of it you actually need. This page is the real structure, which layer a firm your size has to clear, what each one costs in 2026, and the pack of documents that satisfies all of them at once.

The four words and the layer each one sits on

CHAS, CQMS and Smas Worksafe appear on two rows because they operate at two layers and sell a product at each. Constructionline appears on one row because it is a Recognised Assessment Body that buys the health and safety layer in: its SSIP element comes from Once For All Limited, whose SSIP product is called Acclaim. That single fact explains most of the acronym soup a contractor runs into, because the same certificate can arrive with three different names on the covering email.

SSIP is an umbrella, not a scheme you join

Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP) Ltd is a company registered in England, number 10257440, based at The Clock, 12-13 Westgate, Grantham. It does not assess anybody. It maintains the SSIP Core Criteria, which are approved by the Health and Safety Executive, and it admits member schemes that can demonstrate they assess against them.

There are three kinds of member and the difference matters when you are reading a buyer's requirement:

• Registered Members carry out SSIP assessments. Achilles, CHAS 2013 Ltd, Compliance Chain, CQMS, Once For All (Acclaim), SafeContractor, Safety Management Advisory Services (SMAS Worksafe), Avetta, Greenlight, PQS, Salus, SSG and the Association for Project Safety are all on this list.
• Certification Body Members issue ISO 45001 certification with an SSIP element attached. BSI, Bureau Veritas, DNV, Intertek, LRQA, SGS and SOCOTEC sit here.
• Supporter Members recognise SSIP in their own supply chains rather than assessing anyone. Build UK, Builder's Profile, Constructionline, Laing O'Rourke, Multiplex, Landsec, Mears, NHBC, several councils and the Health and Safety Executive itself are Supporter Members.

The twelve Core Criteria are the whole of what an SSIP assessment tests:

1. Health and safety policy and organisation for health and safety
2. Arrangements
3. Competent advice, corporate and construction related
4. Training and information
5. Individual qualifications and experience
6. Monitoring, audit and review
7. Workforce involvement
8. Accident reporting and enforcement action, follow up investigation
9. Sub-contracting and consulting procedures, where applicable
10. Risk assessment leading to a safe system of work
11. Co-operating with others and co-ordinating your work with that of other parties
12. Welfare provision

Criterion 1 is the one that fails people, and it fails on a date rather than on content. The statement of intent has to be signed by the managing director or equivalent and dated within the previous twelve months. A perfectly good policy signed in 2023 is a rejection.

Deem to Satisfy: the mechanism that stops you buying it twice

This is the part worth knowing before you spend anything. Every SSIP member scheme agrees to recognise every other one, and the process for cashing that in is called Deem to Satisfy.

It runs in four steps. You complete an assessment with one SSIP member scheme. You receive its certificate. A buyer then asks for a different scheme's certificate. You apply to that second scheme for Deem to Satisfy, and it verifies your existing approval against its own criteria rather than reassessing you from scratch. Some schemes ask for a small amount of extra material at that point, usually insurance certificates or a handful of risk profile questions.

SSIP publishes a table of equivalences naming what each scheme asks for at the Deem to Satisfy stage and what it knocks off the price. These are the construction-relevant ones:

One direction is closed, and it catches people who bought ISO 45001 first. Certification from a Certification Body Member can be used to apply for Deem to Satisfy with a Registered Member, but the reverse does not work: because of the ISO 45001 component, a Registered Member's certificate cannot be deemed to satisfy a certification body's audit. If you are choosing an order, start with a Registered Member.

A subcontractor on r/smallbusinessuk laid the whole thing out to somebody trying to get onto housebuilder supply chains:

"Get SSIP accredited (SMAS,CQMS,CHAS) if you gain one, you effectively gain them all, you will just get a 'deem to satisfy' certificate for any additional accreditations. You will need this to show your H&S competency."

Sidalous, r/smallbusinessuk

The Common Assessment Standard, which is what replaced PAS 91

PAS 91 was the publicly available specification that set the standard prequalification questionnaire for UK construction. BSI withdrew it in 2023. Its successor is the Common Assessment Standard, developed by Build UK, and the transition is visible in the product names: CHAS still sells its middle tier as meeting "the former PAS 91 standard", and Builder's Profile still advertises a "PAS-91 2017 aligned" profile.

The Common Assessment Standard is a question set of 176 questions across ten sections, plus assessment standards for two levels of certification. Version 5 was published on 1 July 2025 and made the Building Safety section mandatory for companies in scope of it. Version 6 publishes on 1 November 2026, which is the date to have in your diary if you are timing a first application.

The ten sections are Identity, Financial, Corporate and Professional Standing, Health and Safety, Environmental, Quality, Building Safety, Fairness Inclusion and Respect, Information Security, and Information Management.

Four facts about it do the practical work:

The public sector is told to use it. PPN 03/24 puts it plainly: "For works contracts, including the procurement of mixed contracts that include supplies and services, contracting authorities should use the Common Assessment Standard (CAS), in place of the standard SQ template in pre-qualification of bidders." That is central government departments and the wider public sector, and it is the reason a council prequalification pack now looks like the Build UK question set.

Thirty-one named contractors and clients accept it, alongside six trade associations, and having it means you stop being asked for a particular body's certificate. The list includes Balfour Beatty, BAM Construction, Bouygues UK, Bowmer + Kirkland, Canary Wharf Contractors, Clancy Group, Costain, Derwent London, Ferrovial Construction, Galliford Try, HS2, Keltbray, Kier, Laing O'Rourke, Lipton Rogers, Mace, McCarthy Stone, Multiplex, Novus Property Solutions, Pagabo, SCAPE, Sir Robert McAlpine, Sisk, Skanska, STRABAG UK, Structure Tone, Tilbury Douglas, VINCI Construction UK, VolkerWessels UK, Wates and YPO, alongside the trade bodies BESA, FIS, BCSA, ASUC, HAE and IPAF.

Over 21,000 companies across the supply chain are already certified. The certificate is valid for one year from date of issue, provided you refresh the documents Build UK flags as time-critical when they expire.

Your data travels between assessment bodies. Certify once with one Recognised Assessment Body, and you can share verified data on 33 key questions with the others, updated in real time, so buyers who have a relationship with a different body can still see you. To do it you complete that body's data sharing form and email the body that originally certified you to give permission. No original documentation is shared, and a lapsed certification shows as lapsed.

This is a different mechanism from SSIP Deem to Satisfy, and confusing the two is expensive. Deem to Satisfy moves your health and safety approval between SSIP schemes. Data sharing makes your Common Assessment Standard answers visible to more buyers. Neither one requires you to buy a second full certification.

The seven Recognised Assessment Bodies, and what each calls its product

Build UK publishes the mapping, which is useful because a buyer will ask for "the Common Assessment Standard" and a sales page will offer you something with a completely different name.

A desktop audit is the assessment body verifying your submitted information remotely. A site-based audit is an auditor coming to your premises to check that the policies you uploaded are the ones you actually run. You choose one, not both. Which you choose depends on your trade, your size and what your buyers ask for, and for a firm under about ten people the desktop level is the normal answer.

For companies that meet the micro-business criteria, the assessment standards on certain questions are applied proportionately, and micro-businesses can still answer to the full standard if they want to.

What holding SSIP does to the question set

Here is the piece of arithmetic that decides the order you buy things in.

Question 71 of the Common Assessment Standard asks whether you hold a valid SSIP certificate or ISO 45001 from a UKAS accredited certification body. Answer yes, upload the certificate, and state whether it covers general health and safety or a specific CDM dutyholder role, and you do not complete questions 73 to 85 or questions 86 to 110. That is thirty-eight questions of health and safety evidence removed from your application in one upload.

The same exemption logic runs through the rest of the question set. ISO 9001 or BS 99001 takes out quality questions. ISO 14001 or EMAS takes out environmental ones. ISO 27001 or Cyber Essentials Plus takes out information security. ISO 19650-2 takes out information management. Not employing subcontractors removes the subcontracting questions. Not working on projects in scope of the Building Safety Act, and not holding a Building Safety Act or CDM dutyholder role, removes those sections.

Companies going through a site-based audit still have to demonstrate how they implement the policies behind those certifications. The paperwork comes off, the practice does not.

Constructionline's four tiers and what they actually cost

Constructionline prices by turnover band with a joining fee in year one, and every tier includes an SSIP from Once For All Health and Safety as standard. If you already hold an SSIP certificate from another scheme you pay the lower Deem to Satisfy price instead.

What each tier adds:

• Bronze: insurance and SSIP data on a simplified question set, a searchable profile, verified membership status, marketplace access.
• Silver: everything in Bronze plus corporate and professional standing, which is the layer most buyer databases actually query.
• Gold: everything in Silver plus the Common Assessment Standard at desktop level, plus Building Safety Act assessments.
• Platinum: everything in Gold plus a one day premises audit, which is the Common Assessment Standard at site-based level.

Annual fees, excluding VAT, with the joining fee for year one. The second figure in each cell is the price when you already hold a valid SSIP and come in on a Deem to Satisfy certificate.

The jump from Gold to Platinum is the one to look at hard. At £350,000 of turnover, the site-based audit costs an extra £2,350 a year over the desktop certification, and it buys you the same Common Assessment Standard at a level most buyers below Tier 1 do not ask for.

Veriforce CHAS prices by package rather than turnover: CHAS Standard from £429 a year covers SSIP and includes a Social Value Assessment, CHAS Advanced from £659 adds the former PAS 91 standard, and CHAS Elite from £909 is the Common Assessment Standard at desktop level with the public sector requirements included.

Who actually asks for which

A contractor on r/ConstructionManagers put the Tier 1 end of that table in one line:

"Also becoming ever more a requirement with large contractors is that the contractor has to be Constructionline gold standard, and if you aren't on the list your company wont get a lookin for work."

PositiveStrategy6231, r/ConstructionManagers

Two routes, priced end to end

A five-person groundworks and drainage limited company, turnover £420,000, wants to bid council works packages and get onto one regional Tier 1 supply chain. Turnover puts it in the £350,000 to £699,999 band. It holds no accreditation at all today.

Route A is £659 cheaper in year one and delivers the identical Common Assessment Standard desktop certification, because the standard is the standard whoever audits you against it. Route B earns its extra only where a specific buyer names CHAS and will not move.

And when that happens, you still do not buy Route B. You take the Constructionline Gold, then apply to CHAS for Deem to Satisfy on the health and safety element, at 23% to 46% off CHAS's price, sending insurances as the additional information. Separately, you complete Build UK's data sharing form for CHAS so your verified Common Assessment Standard answers show up there too. Two forms, no second audit.

The pack you assemble once

Every gate on this page draws from the same evidence, so build it once, keep it in one folder, and the second application takes an afternoon instead of a fortnight.

The identity data the question set opens with: legal name, trading name, registered office address, trading address and any branches, Companies House number, VAT registration number, Unique Taxpayer Reference, date of incorporation or the date the business started, group structure if any, names and roles of proprietors, partners, directors and the company secretary, whether you are a micro, small or medium enterprise, headcount split into direct PAYE employees and indirect non-PAYE personnel over the last twelve months, the construction trades you undertake, and your geographical area of operation. There is no separate CIS question: your UTR at question 11 is the same reference your CIS registration sits against, and if you are not VAT registered, question 10 takes N/A.

The documents, with the ones Build UK marks time-critical flagged, because those are what lapse and quietly drop your certification:

Three details in that list are where applications actually fail.

The accounts question is answerable even without accounts. If you are an unincorporated business, a sole trader or a partnership, you provide the most recent accounts containing turnover, profit before tax and a balance sheet where one was prepared, covering the last two years of trading or however long you have been trading. If accounts were not prepared at all, you provide the relevant pages of the latest tax return, the self-employment pages for a sole trader or the partnership pages for a partnership, together with the tax assessment. A start-up with nothing filed at Companies House or HMRC provides a forecast of turnover for the current year and a statement of funding from the owners or the bank.

The name on the insurance has to match the name on the application. The question set says it twice: the company name on your insurance policies must match the legal name given at question 1. A policy in a trading name against an application in a registered name is a rejection over something a broker fixes in a phone call. Getting the cover itself right, and the levels a main contractor will ask you to carry, is public and employers' liability.

Small firms can write a statement instead of a policy. With fewer than five employees you may submit a written statement rather than a full health and safety policy. Micro-businesses get the same latitude across several questions, and can answer N/A to some of them outright. The assessment standard bends to the size of the business, which is the single most useful thing to know before paying a consultant to write you a policy suite you do not need.

The free half: CompeteFor and Builder's Profile

Certification gets you through the gate. These two get your name in front of the person buying, and neither is an accreditation.

CompeteFor, now operating as Delta Supply Chain and delivered by BiP Solutions, is free to register on and free to respond to opportunities. It carries more than 100,000 registered suppliers across construction, energy, infrastructure, transport and utilities, and it exists so that large buying organisations can shortlist subcontractors from a diverse pool rather than recycling the same three names. You do two things on it: publish a Business Profile, which is what buyers search, and set an Alert Profile, which decides what lands in your inbox. Buyers move to the Delta eSourcing suite after shortlisting. The helpdesk is 0800 923 9235, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

Builder's Profile is the open-access Common Database that main contractors and their audit partners use to hold subcontractor compliance and prequalification information. Subcontractors keep business, PQQ and compliance records in one place at Basic or Premium level, and the main contractor collects, reviews and maintains supply chain information from the same system rather than emailing you for your insurance certificate every March. It now runs on the Once For All portal, which is the same platform behind Constructionline and Acclaim, so the documents you have already uploaded once are the documents it wants.

Then there are the sector gates, which sit alongside the Common Assessment Standard rather than replacing it. RISQS, the Railway Industry Supplier Qualification Scheme run by RSSB, has more than 4,000 supplier members and is the entry ticket to GB rail. Achilles UVDB is the utilities prequalification system, used by buyers including SSE, Northern Powergrid, Anglian Water, Thames Water, Scottish Water, Cadent and Wales and West Utilities, with UVDB Verify as its audit layer. JOSCAR, run by Hellios, covers defence, aerospace and security, with over 30 buying organisations including BAE Systems, Thales, Leonardo, Rolls-Royce Submarines and the Ministry of Defence, and around 6,000 suppliers. If the work you want sits in one of those three sectors, that gate is in addition to everything above.

What it costs

The gate itself has a floor of about £429 a year for SSIP alone and about £700 to £1,300 a year for the Common Assessment Standard at desktop level, depending on turnover and who you buy it from, plus a joining fee of £99 to £299 in year one on Constructionline. CompeteFor and Builder's Profile registration add nothing to that. Deem to Satisfy and Build UK data sharing are the two things that stop the bill compounding when a second buyer names a different scheme.

On AEC Stack there is no monthly subscription. The platform fee is 2.5% of each invoice processed through the platform, taken when the invoice is paid, so a quiet month costs nothing. Your insurance certificates, policies and accounts live in one place with expiry dates against them, which is what turns an annual recertification from a scramble into a reupload, and the tenders you price sit next to the invoices they turn into.

Work out your turnover band, decide whether you need SSIP alone or the Common Assessment Standard, and buy the one certificate that covers it. Then set the rest of your compliance calendar against the UK rules page.