Health & Safety

Statement of Health & Safety Policy - Grafton Merchanting GB Ltd

As a company, we are committed to doing all we can to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of our employees whilst at work and of all visitors to our premises.

This includes providing a safe working environment, safe equipment, safe methods of storing and handling materials, adequate supervision and training and the provision of protective clothing where necessary.

I would like to stress the vital importance we place on health and safety at work and ask each employee to familiarise himself or herself with the company’s safety statement.

The active co-operation of everyone is vital to the success of our health and safety policy. Each person is expected to take care of his or her own health and safety as well as that of fellow employees and visitors.

If any employee has a query on the health and safety policy or has any suggestions for improving health and safety, they should speak to a health and safety representative or manager.

Peter Butterfield, Health, Safety and Environmental Director

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Grafton Merchanting GB Ltd
Statement of
Health & Safety Policy

Safemark - NHBC's Health & Safety Competence Assessment Scheme

Are you competent?

Being able to prove health and safety competence in the building industry is a crucial element to securing contracts.

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 (CDM 07) state that both contractors and sub-contractors must be able to demonstrate competence, which can be through an approved through an independent assessment scheme.

What is Safemark?

Safemark has been developed to help home builders and others in the industry meet their obligation to only appoint competent contractors by assessing competence to the Stage 1 requirement.

The scheme is a pre-qualification assessment designed around the requirements of Approved Code of Practice to CDM `07. Competence is assessed against a set of criteria, which looks at, among other things, the requirements for contractors to have a health and safety policy, to have access to competent health and safety advice and to ensure employees are appropriately trained. By satisfying the Safemark assessment, a contractor is able to demonstrate Stage 1 competence to those companies that they want to work for, avoiding the need to repeatedly complete individual assessment questionnaires. This also helps those appointing contractors, as they need only need to concern themselves with them

Why choose Safemark?

• Safemark is the only scheme on the market designed by house builder specialists for house builders

• Safemark in effect provides contractors with a 'passport' that exempts contractors from repetitive Stage 1 assessment

• NHBC's health and safety reputation speaks for itself with many years experience of running an Accreditation scheme, quality of assessment is guaranteed.

• Accreditation lasts 12 months so once contractors have satisfied the assessment they only need repeat it once a year rather than for every builder they work for.

• Safemark is accredited to the Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP) standard, of which NHBC is a founder member.

Safemark provides

• reassurance that contractors/sub-contractors are compliant with important health and safety legislation.

• better business practice in the tender process and more profitable and effective client - contractor/sub-contractor relationships through monitored compliance.