The Common Assessment Standard (CAS) was introduced by Build UK and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) in 2019 to standardise and streamline the pre-qualification process which reduces cost, saves time and improves efficiency.
CAS is an industry-agreed question set designed to help manage risk across a wide range of criteria. It’s a comprehensive standard that builds on the PAS 91 pre-qualification questionnaire and has fast become the industry gold standard for pre-qualification.
The government through its procurement office recently released Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 03/23 which mandates that on all public sector contracts (funded by the public purse) PAS 91 or CAS is to be used as the pre-qualification route.
It’s worth noting that the rules to requiring PAS 91 or CAS only apply if the thresholds on the Public Contract Regulations (2015) are exceeded. See section 14 of the PPN 03.23.
To make it easier to complete, CAS is made up of ten key sections, take a look below to see how these are broken down.
Section 1: Identity
Section 2: Financial
Section 3: Corporate and Professional Standing
Section 4: Health & Safety
Section 5: Environmental
Section 6: Quality
Section 7: Equality
Section 8: Corporate Social Responsibility
Section 9: Information Security
GDPR Section 10: Information Management (IM)
CAS is used in government frameworks and a growing list of organisations are now requesting the standard including:
Contractors and businesses of all sizes can take the Common Assessment Standard and it works like many other accreditation schemes carried out by a recognised assessment body. The assessment can be carried out online and certification is awarded after all requirements are met. Businesses that achieve the Common Assessment Standard are then certified once a year.
