Any of you guys registered with SafeContractor?
We registered some time ago after one of our main clients insisted on it and they're an absolute nightmare - nothing more than a legalised protection racket. They send us notifications a month or two before our 'subscription' ends and provide the necessary invoice for us to pay (which keeps going up every year without justification). Once they've relieved us of a grand or so, the actual process takes a few weeks of them inspecting random documentation of ours (insurance, RAMS, accident statistics, H&S policy, etc, etc) and each time someone seemingly with little H&S qualifications or understanding, and certainly no knowledge of electrical work, manages to find something wrong that needs correcting. I'm sure this is just to justify their existence and does absolutely nothing to reduce any accidents on site. The 'expert' assigned to our renewal every year differs each time, along with what they deem to be acceptable or not.
We already use a well known nationwide H&S adviser, who are brilliant and on hand any time to look into anything we need updating, general advice or represent us if anything did happen regarding accidents or legal protection etc (it hasn't yet). On top of this we're NICEIC Approved Contractors and have all of our electrical procedures and site work reviewed annually. Obviously they're also available whenever we need help - though some advice, particularly on the technical side is questionable and usually verbatim from their guides! The point is, what do SafeContractor actually do? They aren't an advisory service in the slightest and it seems their sole purpose is to carry out an onerous tick box exercise to ensure we fit 'their' criteria and charge us healthily for the privilege.
On top of this absolute rip-off where we get nothing at all apart from the ability to continue trading with our clients that have registered with them, we missed a payment once (I think the recurring payment card had expired) and they had the sheer audacity to write to our clients and tell them we were no longer safe to work on their sites. Funnily enough, this was immediately resolved once the payment was taken - which demonstrates they exist purely in order to extract as much cash as possible and aren't the slightest bit interested in reducing accidents. I'm even puzzled as to how they even obtain details for who our clients are (perhaps they've extracted the details from our renewal documentation) but they certainly don't have our permission to contact anyone on our behalf. Can you imagine the NICEIC obtaining a list of our clients and notifying them if our subscription had ended??
So in a nutshell it's "Continue to pay us money every year and on time, regardless of any increases we unilaterally choose to apply without justification, or we'll contact your clients and state you aren't safe to work on their sites, despite the other professional organisations you're a member of overwhelmingly saying that you are. Please don't contact us for advice relating to H&S, because this isn't what we're here for."
If this was some statutory body that had legal authority over H&S law then I could partially understand it, though this lot are just a private entity that have self-appointed themselves to determining who is acceptable for carrying out contracting work. Does anyone else have any dealings with this racket and are wishing they never got involved at all? I'm even beginning to question the legality of it (GDPR springs to mind). If enough people have the same experience then perhaps we can collectively do something about it.
