SSIP, CHAS, Constructionline and ISO: how to show accreditations so buyers and AI tools can verify them

Every subcontractor website has a strip of accreditation logos. Almost none of them can be verified by the person looking at them, and none of them can be read by the AI tools that now shortlist suppliers. This guide explains what SSIP, CHAS, Constructionline and the rest actually tell a buyer, how buyers check them, and how to present them so the check takes a minute instead of an email.

What SSIP is and why it is the first thing checked

Safety Schemes in Procurement is the umbrella under which the main health and safety assessment schemes recognise each other. CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS, Constructionline’s own assessment, Achilles, Acclaim and a dozen others are all members. If you hold any one of them, a buyer who asks for a different one should accept it, because SSIP’s deal-in-principle says the core health and safety stage is equivalent.

In practice a procurement team opens the SSIP portal or the scheme’s own register, searches your company name and checks three things: that you are listed, the level or scope you are assessed for, and the expiry date. If your website states all three in text, they confirm it in seconds. If it shows a logo, they have to go and look, and a surprising number do not.

What each one tells a buyer

• CHAS: health and safety assessment at Standard, Advanced or Elite. Advanced and Elite cover quality, environmental, financial and other PQQ areas as well. Buyers look for the level.
• SafeContractor: health and safety assessment, often required by facilities managers and retail clients. Also an SSIP member.
• SMAS Worksafe: health and safety assessment common in housing and regional contractor supply chains.
• Constructionline: a pre-qualification register rather than a safety scheme alone. Bronze is self-declared, Silver is verified, Gold adds environmental, quality and equality questions, Platinum adds a social value assessment. Most Tier 1s ask for Gold.
• ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001: management system certificates for quality, environment and health and safety, issued by a certification body such as BSI, NQA or Alcumus. Buyers want the body, the scope and the certificate number, because an unaccredited certificate is worth nothing.
• Trade schemes: EN 1090 and CE or UKCA marking for steel, NICEIC or NAPIT for electrical, Gas Safe, F-Gas, NASC and CISRS for scaffolding, NFDC for demolition, RISQS for rail, FIS for finishes, ASFP for passive fire. Each has a public register.
• Insurance: public liability, employers’ liability, contract works, professional indemnity where you design. Not an accreditation, but checked at the same time and often the thing that disqualifies, because the limit is lower than the contract requires.

How to present them so buyers and AI tools can verify them

1. One accreditations page. Not a logo strip in the footer, not a line on the about page. One page, linked from the main navigation, that a buyer or a tool can go straight to.
2. Every item written out as text: the scheme, the level, the certificate or membership number where there is one, the issuing body, the expiry or renewal date.
3. Each one linked to its entry on the public register, so the claim can be confirmed with one click. If the register does not have public search, link to the scheme’s verification page.
4. Insurance with the insurer, the limits and the renewal month. You do not need to publish the policy, but a buyer should not have to ask what your public liability limit is.
5. The same facts marked up as structured data, so an AI tool reads “CHAS Advanced, expires 14 March 2027” as a fact about your organisation rather than guessing from a logo file called chas.png.
6. A renewal routine. Accreditations lapse, and a lapsed one on a website is worse than none, because it tells the buyer nobody is looking. Put every renewal date in a calendar and update the page the day it renews.

The common mistakes

• Logos with no text. The commonest mistake and the one that costs the most, because it fails both the human check and the machine one.
• A level that is wrong or missing. Saying “CHAS accredited” when a buyer needs to know whether it is Advanced.
• Expired certificates still on the page. Easy to spot, and the first thing a procurement team mentions in a rejection.
• Group accreditations used for a division. If a specialist trade inside a larger group tenders on its own, it needs its own accreditations stated separately.
• Details that disagree with the register. A different trading name or postcode between your site and CHAS makes an AI tool treat you as two firms, neither fully verified.

What to do this week

• List every accreditation, certificate and insurance policy you hold, with level, number, body and expiry.
• Check each one on its public register and note the exact name and address the register holds.
• Compare that list with your website. Anything shown as a logo only, anything expired and anything missing goes on the fix list. Then run the free Tender Check, where the Verified stage scores exactly this.

Where the schemes stand in 2026

The SSIP forum remains the umbrella for health and safety assessment, but the question set that sits above it is now the Common Assessment Standard. PPN 03/24 directs public sector buyers to use it for construction works, and the July 2025 update made the building safety section mandatory for anyone working under the Building Safety Act. More than 21,000 suppliers hold it, through seven recognised assessment bodies that share data, so one certification is enough.

On Constructionline, the Common Assessment Standard sits at Gold, which is why that is the level VINCI, Wates, BAM, Kier and Balfour Beatty ask for, and why a Gold entry now shows a Common Assessment Standard badge beside the supplier status. Around 10,000 buyers from 3,800 organisations search that register. The firms that make the most of it say the same thing about visibility.

Being listed at Gold level also increases our visibility to major contractors.
Andrew Stevenson, group sales director, Premier Forest Products, April 2026

The point for your website is that a buyer who finds you on Constructionline will open your site next, and an AI tool will read both. If the level, the certificate number and the expiry match across the two, you are verified in a minute. If they disagree, you are two firms. The Foundations Sprint exists to do exactly this reconciliation on an existing site in a fortnight.