- I would be interested to learn more about what you've been doing.

Thanks Peter, That has jogged my memory.

Despite the fact that it's my main role, getting clients through them all... Hear hear!

I work for a group of trucking companies with over 200 trucks on the road (city and rural) and we deliver and pick up at 100's of sites. The work we do is mostly short duration (either drop off or pick up goods or livestock). We get pre-qualified by 100's of organisations paper-based and electronic and swap 100's of documents - none of which makes the job any safer. The key document is the risk assessment for the job (SOP/SWM for swinging containers, operating a crane truck, pick up/deliver livestock, spread fertiliser, pick up deliver bulk commodities, cart logs, spray agrichemicals etc). Very few organisations ask for these and it's rare for the three C's principles to be followed. If the value of the work is less than the cost of the pre-qual system I politely decline.

We are a Council and as a region have banded together to get the same pre-qualification system. We have held workshops outside of office / working hours so that the contractors / sub-contractors can come and chat with us and see how the pre-qualification works. These workshops have worked very well and received with gratitude from the contractors.

At our Council we have also accepted that if a contractor / sub-contractor is pre-qualified with another system, and can prove that by sending us their current certification, then we will exempt them. e.g. they will still be an approved contractor but no need to sign up to our system we use. I feel that this is just and fair as you have all commented, that it costs so much to get pre-qualified. Being practical is what we are trying to achieve at our workplace and working with the contractors.

Hello everyone - CHASNZ has been working on behalf of the construction industry to remove duplication and standardise the approach to pre-qualification.

We are now consulting with wider industry on a potential new model for the construction industry, however this was also designed with other industries in mind in the future. Feel free to distribute the following link: https://www.chasnz.org/totika and the associated documents.

We will be holding town hall meetings in July and engaging with stakeholders directly, including pre-qualification companies.

It is a genuine consultation and we are keen to hear if there are better ways of achieving the end result of having suppliers/contractors choose their right pre-qualification service that fits the requirements for all their clients. We also want clients (buyers of pre-qual services) to have visibility of all contractors who have been pre-qualified regardless of who did it.

We are not advocating creating a new pre-qualification scheme, this is a cross recognition scheme, with a centralised information repository and independent audit of the pre-qualification providers to an established standard so everyone is clear what good looks like.

We are also suggesting that those already part of a recognised and audited scheme such as ISO 45001 should not require a further pre-qualification.

There is also a survey on the web page with four simple questions around the perceived value and cost of the current pre-qualification process that we would appreciate your assistance in filling out and distributing further.

Hi There,

In reply to Chris Alderson's post as we are all aware that the prequalification situation is broken. However, no new system will work for SMEs until it is NZ wide government-led solution and not a sector driven approach. Currently, I can get a WOF that works nationwide on State Highways or on a rural road, I can choose a food shop on a national grade etc but currently, even government organisations can't agree on which prequalification to use let alone the corporates.

Prior to the dearth of these companies arriving over the last 6 years, we were developing a programme to run our own independent audit of our company to our requirements. The aim was to get real genuine, fit for purpose feedback that would have had real tangible safety benefit for our staff and our organisation. However, with the heavily rising cost of prequalification and the reality of no client ever accepting our own independent audit, we ceased this programme. One of the key outputs from this plan was to identify key areas where to increase expenditure in HSQE that again would have had high value to our staff. With the horrendous cost, (annual cost plus time plus loss of client due to prequalification exceeding revenue of work) over the last 6 years, this has not been an option.

Now don't get me wrong we have operated for over 25 years in high-risk environments with no serious harm. We have used and maintained a safety management system since we started and are extremely proud of what we do, how we do it and what we achieve. What we really wanted to do was to be more exceptional and aspirational. Prequalification systems have killed this, we simply do not have the budget or resource time it to do it anymore.

So until its a cast iron guarantee that any new system or new idea will work for all industry from Kaitaia to Bluff and accepted by any PCBU then I will only be expecting more erosion of genuine business focused safety. Now i must go finish yet another prequalification for another company, only because i cant even ask for work from them unless i have it and i though gambling was illegal.

Gotta say I'm at a loss to understand why people use / require pre-qual processes / services. I won't use them and detest being forced into the mincer if we end up working on a construction site.

Our fundamental premise for working with subcontractors is that we will work in partnership. That means we look after each other best interests. Its a trusted relationship and consequently we don't work with many subbies nor would we entertain working with subbies outside our sphere. We all understand that we are all here to do a good job, look after our people and make money (as a nod of respect and understanding to our shareholders).

As for the pre-qual service providers - all I have had is totally unsavoury experiences from them. Their technical knowledge of the law was lacking and all they seemed to want to do was tick boxes and nick our intellectual property.

I lay part of the blame at the feet of the big corporate health and safety people. They just seem interested in creating work for themselves through running objectionable compliance programmes . Its not about compliance - its about doing the right thing for all interested parties.

Prequalification systems are a huge bug bear . There needs to be one system which can be adapted to suit contractors, consultancies et al. The amount of time and the expense involved is prohibitive and as mentioned previously all they do is show a company has systems and processes they don't show how these are actually being put into practice

We would really love to hear about your experiences with pre-qualification and get your feedback on our proposed solution to fix this issue.

Please visit https://www.chasnz.org/totika.

You can look at our Tōtika documents, answer some simple questions about your pre-qualification experiences, and leave feedback on the proposed way forwards.

Although initially this is an intended cross recognition solution for NZ building and construction, once implemented it could have the potential to be a cross industry solution for NZ.

Prequalification is yet another example of trying to put processes on 'automatic' to avoid having to do any real thinking or decision-making, using systems that are riddled with blind spots and dangerous assumptions.

Isn't this true of ANY system that 'outsources' or otherwise relies on automated processes or external / third party qualifying agencies to make those decisions? The same can be said of many HR talent software platforms that screen applications against pre-set criteria without realising they are likely to be eliminating some of the best candidates because of the assumptions they have made - I have been developing an article on this very topic, which I intend to post on LinkedIn.