Worksafe Plus (formerly PQQ)
Go beyond just Health & Safety with tailored risk management certification designed to boost your business to greater heights.
Introducing Worksafe Plus: the certification that incorporates the principles of SSIP (Safety Schemes in Procurement) with the coverage of the Smas Standard (formerly PAS 91). Take control of your Environmental and Quality Management, Financial and Business Standing, and Corporate & Professional Standing to show clients your dedication to comprehensive risk management.
And now you can go even further with our Endorsement modules. Covering ESG and Strands A & B of the Building Safety Act, these three modules are automatically included in your Worksafe Plus package and are optional to complete, depending on the needs of your business.
Tendering is highly competitive – we’re here to help you stay ahead.
Contact us about Worksafe Plus today
Get in touch to find out how Smas Worksafe could help your business.
What is Worksafe Plus?
Industries such as manufacturing and construction will use pre-qualification questionnaires (PQQs) to help shortlist potential candidates in the tendering process. These questionnaires assess a contractor’s Health & Safety details and overall competency – but they can also be time-consuming and admin-intensive.
With Worksafe Plus certification from Smas, you’ll cut back on the number of Health & Safety assessments you need to complete. Your certification will act as a single badge of quality, approved by both our trained, licensed experts and the SSIP governing body.
Tailored support for PQQs in construction
We work alongside many construction companies to help streamline the pre-qualification questionnaire process.
We use the Smas Standard, built off the back of the former PAS 91 (Publicly Available Specification) questionnaire. This helped to standardise the list of questions contractors had to answer when proving their Health & Safety, simplifying the tendering process.
With Worksafe Plus, you’ll meet both SSIP and Smas Standard requirements. Plus, we offer suppliers a pre-qualification questionnaire template for contractors with our supply chain management service. Just give us a call on 01752 697370 to discuss your options today.
What are the benefits of Worksafe Plus?
- Well-rounded support: Worksafe Plus builds on our Worksafe SSIP package, covering a wider range of risk management areas
- Greater tendering opportunities: Stand out from the competition with expert certification, highlighting your business as the go-to choice for projects
- Client trust: Certified practices prove your business is secure, responsible, and committed to delivering excellent results – this helps build trust with your clients
- Streamlined PQQ: Cut back on the number of pre-qualification questionnaires you need to complete when tendering, saving both time and money
- Additional optional modules: Go above and beyond with three optional modules, giving your business an even bigger boost when it comes to tendering
Everything included in our Worksafe Plus package
- Identity: Captures your company’s core identity and legal information, e.g. official registration details, workforce information, and associations with other companies.Proves your business is legally registered and able to operate.
- Health & Safety: The standard SSIP assessment includes an online assessment of your safety policies and any related procedures and records. Proves your Health & Safety procedures are updated and appropriate for the task at hand.
- Financial and Business Standing: Assessment of your business’s financial history, e.g. bank references and insurance documents. Important for buyers planning long-term/high-value projects, demonstrating your business is stable and unlikely to go into financial distress.
- Corporate and Professional Standing: Ensures ethical, compliant, and lawful business conduct regarding anti-bribery, fraud, and anti-slavery. Shows clients that your business is ethical and advocates for fair working practices.
- Environmental Management: Assesses your environmental responsibility and compliance, e.g. commitment to reducing waste and carbon emissions, evaluation of your training, reporting, and overall environmental policies. Proves to buyers that you take your environmental impact seriously and are working to stay as environmentally responsible as possible.
- Quality Management: Looks at your quality assurance systems, and how you will deliver high-quality products to your clients within reasonable time frames – and how you will manage your contractors and subcontractors to do the same. Shows clients that you will deliver projects to a high standard and on time.
- ESG: Optional Endorsement module. Assessment of effective environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices, e.g. environmental management, carbon footprint, labour standards, transparency, etc. Aligned with PAS 2080, FSC, BES 6001 and ISO 14090. Highlights your commitment to ethical work practices in relation to the wider community, positioning your business as a key partner for projects due to the genuine value you provide both to your client, your workers, and the surrounding area.
- Building Safety Act, Strand A: Optional Endorsement module. Assessment of compliance against core building-safety expectations for duty holders in design and construction, based on the competence themes in BS 8670-1.
- Building Safety Act, Stand B: Optional Endorsement module. Can only be completed alongside BSA-A. Assesses your compliance across additional responsibilities for working with higher-risk buildings, e.g. duty holder competence, implementation of strict design and construction controls, and fire safety. Aligned with PAS 8671 and PAS 8672.
Discover our bespoke Worksafe package
With over 20 years of experience supporting a range of industries, we understand that every business is different. That’s why we offer bespoke packages that cover each of your individual needs.
We’ll work closely with you to support your requirements and assist you in putting together information appropriate for your clients, proving your business is reliable, ethical, sustainable and compliant. Plus, with our optional Endorsement modules, aligned with key government frameworks and internationally recognised standards (ISOs), clients will see your dedication to quality risk management practices, putting you in a better position to win bigger, better tenders.
Find out how to join and start your journey towards certification today!
Worksafe (SSIP certification)
Worksafe Plus
Worksafe Pro
Our application process
Our online application process is simple to complete, and we only ask questions relevant to your business size and activities!
- Purchase your Worksafe Plus application, and receive assistance from our in-house assessment team.
- Fill out the relevant questions, gathering evidence from your documentation and work practices.
- You have the option to fill out the three additional question sets — these are automatically included in your purchase, but not mandatory to complete.
- Submit your assessment, and our team will review everything and contact you if there’s anything that needs resubmitting or clarifying.
- Achieve your certification, and get tendering!
Once you’re certified with Smas Worksafe, you’ll also be added to the Smas Portal, giving you access to resources like our pre-qualification template to help you along. It also adds you to a talent pool of over 35,000 contractors, providing visibility to major companies from across the UK, like Taylor Wimpey, Barratt Redrow, and Cala Homes, helping you get connected to more opportunities.
Pre-qualified questionnaire FAQs
A PQQ is a necessary question set that must be completed before businesses can tender for a project. Clients can use it as a screening system to weed out unsuitable contractors before anyone is invited to tender, which is why having a strong PQQ is essential.
At Smas, our Worksafe Plus assessment covers the most common areas in a PQQ. This means you can present the client with your completed, certified Worksafe Plus assessment (valid for 12 months), which will act as a large portion – if not all – of a PQQ. This saves you time and effort, helping your business get ahead of the competition since all your documents are already in place and ready to go.
A standard PQQ is simply a way of determining which contractors are the right fit for a tender. It helps clients sort through applications before official tendering takes place, so only the most qualified and suitable fits for the job go through.
PAS 91 was the former standardised framework for PQQs, developed by the British Standards Institute (BSI). It was withdrawn in 2023 and succeeded by the Common Assessment Standard. However, our Worksafe Plus still follows the core components of PAS 91, which we now know as the Smas Standard.
The Common Assessment Standard (CAS) replaced PAS 91 as the gold standard for tendering for public sector contracts. It went above and beyond the scope of PAS 91, encompassing ten key components rather than the original five PAS 91 covered.
A Smas Worksafe certificate works in the place of your PQQ – think of it like a PQQ you’ve already filled out, and can take from place to place. There may be a couple of questions specific to the client which need answers, but for questions of competency and overall risk management, your Smas certificate (authenticated by both our industry experts and the SSIP governing body) should suffice.
Depending on your Smas Worksafe membership, we can get your application reviewed in as little as one day. Our standard service time is between one and ten days, but we’ll always aim to send you your result as quickly as possible, and let you know if there’s anything wrong with your assessment.