Subcontractors
Site compliance software for subcontractors.
You produce the paperwork, somebody else sets the standard, and every principal contractor wants it slightly differently.
14 days free access · no card needed
A subcontractor's compliance problem is not knowing what to do — it is proving it, repeatedly, to people who each want it in their own format, on their own timescale, before they will let you start.
The same risk assessment gets rewritten for four principal contractors. The same operatives get inducted onto every site separately. The same insurance certificate gets emailed a dozen times a year. None of it is difficult; all of it is friction, and it lands on whoever is least able to absorb it.
It is also increasingly the thing that decides whether you get the work. Pre-qualification is a documentation exercise, and a business that cannot produce evidence quickly loses to one that can.
The records
What subcontractors are answerable for
- RAMS per task, and the version a client accepted
- Insurance and accreditation, with expiry dates
- Operative cards, qualifications and training
- Inductions received, per site
- Toolbox talks and briefings delivered to your people
- Incidents and near misses on anybody's site
BuildOptix holds each of these against the site, the business or the person it belongs to, with its own expiry.
The problem
What makes subcontractors compliance hard
The same evidence, in four formats
Every principal contractor has their own pre-qualification process and their own expectations for a method statement. The underlying work is identical and the presentation is not, which is pure repeated effort.
Operatives inducted site by site
A worker inducted on Monday at one site starts from nothing at the next. Keeping track of which of your people are cleared where becomes a job in itself once you are on more than two sites.
Cards and tickets that lapse mid-contract
A card expiring is not a warning, it is a worker turned away at a gate — and the cost of that lands on you, along with the conversation with the principal contractor.
Paperwork held by whoever did it last
RAMS, certificates and training records tend to live in the folder of whoever produced them. When a client asks at short notice, the delay is not in finding the answer but in finding the person.
You are still answerable for your own people
Working under somebody else's principal contractor does not transfer your duties as an employer. Your briefings, your competence evidence and your incidents remain yours to hold.
The answer
How BuildOptix helps
The same evidence, in four formats
RAMS and method statements are held as controlled documents with their versions, so producing the right one for a given client is retrieval rather than rewriting.
RAMS & method statementsCards and tickets that lapse mid-contract
Cards, qualifications and training sit on the operative's record with their own expiry dates, so a lapse is visible before a gate finds it.
Inductions & toolbox talksPaperwork held by whoever did it last
Documents live against the site and the business rather than in an individual's folder, which is what makes a short-notice request answerable by whoever picks up the phone.
Document controlOperatives inducted site by site
Sites and projects are recorded with who has been inducted onto each, so which of your people are cleared where is a record rather than a memory.
Sites & projectsYou are still answerable for your own people
Incidents and near misses involving your operatives are captured and closed out on your own system, wherever they happened.
Accidents & RIDDOR
Who it is for
The people doing this job
Owner-managers
Running the business and the compliance, usually in the evening.
Contracts and site supervisors
Getting people through gates and answering whatever the principal contractor asks for.
site inductionOffice and compliance administrators
Producing the same evidence repeatedly for different clients.
RAMSOperatives
Holding cards and tickets across trades, often across several sites in a week.
CSCS cardPrincipal contractors you work for
Setting the standard and asking for proof before you start.
principal contractor
Questions
What subcontractors ask
- We are small. Is this not aimed at main contractors?
- The duties on an employer do not scale down, and a small subcontractor usually has nobody whose job this is. The common reason businesses this size adopt something is pre-qualification: the work increasingly goes to whoever can produce evidence quickly.
- Can we reuse a RAMS across several clients?
- Documents are held with versions, so a task-based RAMS can be maintained once and issued where it is needed rather than rewritten per client. What a given principal contractor accepts is still their decision.
- Can principal contractors see our records?
- Access is role-based, so you can give somebody the part they need rather than everything. What you choose to share with a client is your decision.
- Does it track CSCS cards?
- Cards, qualifications and training are recorded against the operative with their own expiry. It records what you saw and when it runs out — it does not verify a card against a scheme's database.
- Does it do invoicing or applications for payment?
- No. There is no commercial or accounting function in it at all.
Keep reading
One record per site, and the evidence already in it
Sites, subcontractors, inductions and incidents on one record, for subcontractors desks.
14 days free access · no card needed