SafeContractor

[doobin]

A management agent we work for is asking for this. Anyone done it? Looks like your usual parasites but I will just charge them more, and they rely upon me as the local contact to sort out all kinds of problems at the property.

Has anyone done this? How much paperwork is there? I'm planning on using a consultant so I reckon it'll cost me around 1k for the consultant and the first year. What I don't want is mountains of paperwork- that's the bloody consultants job!

 

[JD450A]

Tell em to f**k off..... slippy slope and once you join it they won't accept you without it.

 

[Grahams]

I have to do safecontractor. It is a pain, but not insurmountable. I am absolutely hopeless at forms and what we do is so niche it doesn’t fit in easily with any of these sort of things, but I have struggled through it so you should have little trouble.
Don’t expect it to lead to any extra work, it is just another pointless exercise to take more money off you without giving you anything worthwhile in return.

 

[V8Druid]

looks like another checkatrade bollox type thing ....... https://www.safecontractor.com/

BWW wanted me to do something similar, many years ago ..... local guy came in to see me with a ream of paperwork to fill in .... dropped it in the waste basket in front of him and said "been nice doing business with you, good luck finding a new supplier/source for your requirements"
were back in the following week with an order, order number and when could they have it .. the BS paperwork scheme was never mentioned again ... Fkd if I was paying some 'club' dues, to do what i'd done for them for decades

 

[Shovelhands]

Resist it as much as possible. Once your on board that ship then it’s hard to get off!
Its like paying the foreman each week just to have a job......

 

[hiluxman]

I have 3 times been asked for it, on all 3 occasions I looked into it and thought fcuk that, still work for 2 of the firms today who's office said I can't without it.

 

[JD450A]

We theoretically should be CHAS registered or some other bollox to work for the national trust..... we are not. We are "agricultural contractors"

 

[Brendan]

It's a load of box ticking and makes you have alot of stuff you don't need but pay through the nose for the privilege.

If I remember right one of the things they insist on is a written health and safety policy which (if it's still the same) is only needed for companies with more than five employees

 

[Quattromike]

We have done it, I think it's alcumis now or something, load of ballcocks. It's just one customer asking for it. We did it without any consultant and was a nightmare, kept coming back with more and more questions totally irrelevant to what we do and in the end had to fudge a load of made up paperwork to appease them

 

[V8Druid]

was another contractor worked for BWW who adopted the same attitude as I did .... worked for them daily, week in, week out, for decades -- loaded his gear and said virtually the same as me ... "good luck finding a new guy who does what i do and knows as much about the canal as I do" .. were begging him to return within 5 days
he was fair, trustworthy and like me, never took the p*ss with the bills. I don't think any of the locals agreed to the bollox, once the word got around.

 

[TiltyShaun]

Thank you, but no thank you. I remember a client I worked for employed a new contract supervisor that wanted all the bells and whistle for material sampling. I asked who was paying and was told that I was. That is fine I said, but you pay for the concrete not me. So unless you confirm it is to standard we won’t pour it!! Do we wait 28 days for the sample to be tested or do we crack on!!

 

[Giles]

We theoretically should be CHAS registered or some other bollox to work for the national trust..... we are not. We are "agricultural contractors"

I’m just doing Constructionline to carry on working for the trust despite me doing two emergency jobs for them without it.

 

[GazCro]

It's funny how it's often down to what suits with some of your local authorities. Old fella did quite a few footpaths for the lake district national park authority. He wouldn't jump through all the hoops they asked but when they're was a section of path to do with bad access or just a lot of graft to put into it and the "bigger contractors" didn't want anything to do with it or were way too dear none of the box ticking or hoops seemed to matter.

 

[Left hooker]

It's funny how it's often down to what suits with some of your local authorities. Old fella did quite a few footpaths for the lake district national park authority. He wouldn't jump through all the hoops they asked but when they're was a section of path to do with bad access or just a lot of graft to put into it and the "bigger contractors" didn't want anything to do with it or were way too dear none of the box ticking or hoops seemed to matter.

Never get asked for anything doing national trust work down here except the price

 

[V8Druid]

looks like another checkatrade bollox type thing ....... https://www.safecontractor.com/

BWW wanted me to do something similar, many years ago ..... local guy came in to see me with a ream of paperwork to fill in .... dropped it in the waste basket in front of him and said "been nice doing business with you, good luck finding a new supplier/source for your requirements"
were back in the following week with an order, order number and when could they have it .. the BS paperwork scheme was never mentioned again ... Fkd if I was paying some 'club' dues, to do what i'd done for them for decades

Kev and I went back to our school days and aside from our 'work' connections, were friends ... he even apologised for having to bring in the paperwork, knowing full well what my reaction'd be .... orders from some pen pushing tw*t, further up the food chain were the cause ... and wasn't in the slightest bit surprised when i binned the ream .... he also knew they'd struggle to get the service and products I supplied and certainly at the sort of fair rates i charged.

that level of paperwork comes at significant on-cost ..... no idea WTF he said to the idiot further up the chain of command, but as said, was biz as usual the following week, ad infinitum ...... the 'system' was just some to**ers trying to create an income, off the backs of suppliers and contractors, .. one that they'd managed to persuade the pen pushers, would be a great idea.......
and their likes have become the parasites of British industry .....
and is why everything costs soooooooo much more than it should

 

[JD450A]

I’m just doing Constructionline to carry on working for the trust despite me doing two emergency jobs for them without it.

Hold your ground...... Your track record should speak volumes.

 

[DaveDCB]

Never done anything like it, never will.. if I joined all these fancy clubs I’d have no profit left and a wall full of fancy paperwork which in reality means absolutely nothing!
you see all these companies posting how “proud they are to be accredited with such certification” what they are really saying is thank f£&k that ordeal is over!!

 

[Grahams]

I’m just doing Constructionline to carry on working for the trust despite me doing two emergency jobs for them without it.

Constructionline is much much worse than Safecontractor. Even when you eventually get acredited you are having to update things most months.

 

[Grahams]

As with a lot of these clubs a lot depends who the main contractor is and how much say the guys giving out contracts have. If they run an approved contractor list and you have to be Constructionline or Safecontractor or both approved to get on it and they are only allowed to use people from their approved list then you are in trouble if you want to work for them. It is just a time/reward calculation, but I will say Constructionline saps my will to live some times. They used to have some sense that I don't do all the construction stuff and they would suggest what was needed, now it feels like I am dealing with a 16 year old working from home and unless you put exactly the wording they want it just get returned with no help.

 

[Giles]

Hold your ground...... Your track record should speak volumes.

The surveyor guy is fine, it’s head office refusing to pay unless we are on Constructionline