Higher Education Supply Chain Management

Higher Educational facilities are most aware of their responsibility to ensure that the contractors’ that they choose to work with have the capability to do so as well as to ensure that their Stage 1 Health and Safety requirements are met before engaging in works.

We work with the likes of the University Warwick who have partnered with SMAS Worksafe to help manage a healthy supply chain.

What our clients most like about us is that our solution enables them to quickly and easily find suppliers whilst benefiting from our managed solution. This means that SMAS Worksafe ensures their suppliers remain compliant with Health & Safety and PAS91 requirements.

How can SMAS Worksafe Help your Higher Education Institution?

We provide seamless migration of your supply chain to our SMAS Worksafe Management Programme which lessens the burden of in-house H&S pre-qualification assessments. Our specialist team will track H&S certifications with each contractor and manage renewals when required, enabling you to focus on your core business activities.

SMAS Worksafe also provides Account Management Reports showing Group and Regional compliance which identifies areas at risk in the business.

What Is Responsible Procurement?

It is generally considered to be a procurement process that takes into account social, environmental and economic impacts to support sustainable development.

There is a growing movement toward change in governance and culture in Higher Education where responsible resourcing and procurement are working to largely contribute to recognising the impact of environmental and sustainability risks.

It is important that the environmental, social and economic impacts are considered within the procurement process. As an example, recent legislation relating to the Modern Slavery Act provided an additional requirement to include in the procurement process.

SMAS Worksafe Preferred Supplier is your Solution

We provide a Preferred Supplier package which gives you a set of recommendations to both the Supplier and Client and encourages continual improvement covering Health & Safety, Environmental & Quality Management, Financial & Business Standing and Anti-bribery, Corruption, & Modern Slavery.

This solution will allow your supply chain to demonstrate their commitment to management processes and policies.

How SMAS Deliver Cost Savings and a Simple, Transparent Approach

SMAS provides a genuine value-for-money service to our clients and well as to their supply chain within the higher education sector.

As a client, SMAS Worksafe can provide you with a Zero Cost partnership to help you manage your supply chain. You will also have access to 000’s of accredited contractors, as well as receive monthly compliance reports which will show where you may have areas of risk.

Simplicity in our pricing

Unlike alternative Schemes, SMAS do not operate a tiered fee structure. You may notice other Schemes apply different assessment fees dependent on the size and turnover of an organisation. We do not believe this is necessary and are able to offer the same level of fee to all our members.

An approach to Mutual Recognition which meets the aims of SSIP

Other Schemes charge as much, or in some cases more, for organisations to request mutual recognition, rather than complete a full assessment with them. SMAS do not feel this is either fair or proportionate to the work involved in processing this request.

Our fee covers a basic administrative cost involved in processing this registration. This means that if a member of your supply chain already hold an alternative SSIP member certificate with another Scheme, they can reduce the time involved to complete the registration and also achieve significant cost savings too.

Preferred Supplier Bundles

We recognise that many of the contractors you work with may be approaching some of these topics for the first time. That’s why SMAS Worksafe is providing detailed guidance and support to contractors, along with some really helpful templates and other resources to get them started.

Our approach is about continual development, so we are encouraging all contractors to participate in the additional questions and tell their clients the status of these additional areas, as they stand today. SMAS will then work with them before the next profile update to ensure they are developing their systems to be appropriate and applicable to the work they conduct, and as a result, provide you with the assurance you need that they can deliver that work in a consistent and reliable way and which meets their obligations under UK law.

Our In-House Assessment Team are there to help you

We have an in-house assessment team who are a phone call away should you have a question regarding your assessment.

If you have any questions about the process, give us a call on 01752 393404 and speak to Trish Meyer so that we can help you to get started