When Did You Last Properly Check Contractor Competence
- Paul Scanlon
- Jul 30
- 1 min read
When did you last properly check the competence of a contractor — not just their insurance certificates and CSCS cards?
Regulation 8 of CDM 2015 requires every duty holder to take reasonable steps to verify the skills, knowledge, experience, and organisational capability of those they appoint.
That is a broader test than most pre-qualification processes actually deliver.
CSCS cards confirm a minimum level of trade qualification. They do not tell you whether a contractor has the management systems, the site-specific experience, or the organisational capacity to deliver your project safely.
HSE guidance is clear that pre-qualification questionnaires are a useful starting point — but they must be proportionate to the project and must be supplemented by genuine scrutiny. Filing a completed PQQ without reviewing it is not competence checking. It is paperwork.
For commercial clients, this means asking real questions before you appoint: Does this contractor have demonstrable experience on projects of this type and scale? Do they have the right management team in place for this project specifically? Has anything changed in their business since they last worked for us?
If you haven't asked those questions on your current project, it's worth doing so now — before work starts, not after.
Get your free Client Guide to CDM 2015 here: cdm2015.co.uk/resource-download
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