UK HSE Compliance Software for Energy & Industrial Contractors
RIDDOR records, permits, plant inspections, and the SSIP evidence pack your clients ask for every year — captured in the field, retrievable in seconds. Built for crews working across scattered sites.
Written by Jacob Szyszka, Founder of BasinCheck. Regulatory detail on this page links to HSE guidance and scheme sources.
The Regulations Behind Your Client's Questionnaire
UK health and safety law is a stack rather than a single rulebook. Which parts bite depends on what you handle and where you work.
The duty everything else hangs off
General duties on employers, the self-employed, and anyone in control of premises. Enforced by the HSE and, for some premises, local authorities.
Risk assessment
Requires suitable and sufficient risk assessment and arrangements to implement the measures it identifies. Written records are expected where you have five or more employees.
Incident reporting
Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations. Sets what must be reported to the enforcing authority, in what timeframe, and how long records are kept.
Flammables and explosive atmospheres
Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations. Hazardous area classification, ignition control, and the assessment behind hot work controls on hydrocarbon sites.
Major hazard establishments
Control of Major Accident Hazards. Applies to establishments holding qualifying quantities of dangerous substances — terminals, storage, and processing sites rather than every yard.
Construction phase
Construction (Design and Management) Regulations. Duty holder roles, construction phase plans, and the paperwork principal contractors ask subcontractors to produce.
Onshore and offshore are not the same duty set
Offshore installations in UK waters carry additional duties under the Offshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations 2015 and PFEER 1995, normally managed inside a duty holder's safety case system. BasinCheck is built for onshore contractor crews — if you supply personnel to an offshore duty holder, it covers your own obligations, not the installation safety case.
RIDDOR Timeframes Contractors Miss
Late RIDDOR reports usually come from a decision delay, not a reporting failure. Someone waited to find out whether the injury would pass seven days — and the fifteen-day clock had already started on the accident date.
| Event | Reporting timeframe |
|---|---|
| Death or specified injury to a worker | Notify without delay by the quickest practicable means, then submit the formal report within 10 days |
| Injury causing more than seven days' incapacitation | Within 15 days of the accident — the clock starts on the accident date, not when day seven passes |
| Reportable occupational disease | As soon as you receive the written diagnosis for a disease on the reportable list |
| Dangerous occurrence | Notify without delay, then submit the formal report within 10 days |
| Internal records | Keep records of reportable incidents and over-three-day absences for at least three years |
The reportable categories are specific lists, not a judgement call. Check the current definitions on HSE RIDDOR guidance before deciding an event is not reportable.
SSIP, CHAS, and the Annual Evidence Pack
Safety Schemes in Procurement exists so contractors aren't assessed on the same core criteria over and over. Its member schemes recognise each other's assessments — but each one still wants to see completed records.
CHAS
One of the original health and safety assessment schemes and still among the most widely recognised on UK bid lists.
SafeContractor
Broad assessment that reaches past health and safety into environmental, quality, financial, and modern slavery questions.
Constructionline Acclaim
Frequently required by public sector buyers and tier-one principal contractors.
SMAS Worksafe
Common with regional contractors and housebuilders; assessed against the SSIP core criteria.
Achilles
Building Confidence and UVDB run standardised prequalification for construction and utilities supply chains.
Mutual recognition
SSIP member schemes operate a "Deemed to Satisfy" arrangement, so one assessment can be recognised by other member schemes instead of repeating it.
Where Contractors Actually Fail
Almost nobody fails on policy documents. They fail on proving the policy was used.
The assessor wants records, not policies
SSIP assessments and client audits ask for completed examples: risk assessments in use, inspection records, training matrices, accident records, and evidence that findings were actioned. A well-written policy with no supporting records is the most common resubmission cause.
Annual renewal is a recurring scramble
Most schemes reassess yearly. If your records live in email threads and spreadsheets, you rebuild the pack every year from scratch rather than exporting what already exists.
Scattered sites, one office
Industrial services, decommissioning, and maintenance work happens across dozens of client sites. The person compiling evidence is rarely the person who generated it.
Five Steps to a Renewal That Isn't a Project
The goal is unglamorous: make last year's records exportable instead of reconstructable.
Fix your reporting decision path
Write down who decides whether an event is RIDDOR reportable, who submits it, and how the reference number gets recorded. Most late reports are decision failures, not system failures.
Digitise the forms crews actually use
Task risk assessments, permits, plant and lifting inspections, and toolbox talks become timestamped records at the point of signature instead of paperwork returned to the office days later.
Track findings to closure
Every action gets an owner, a due date, and closure evidence. This is the section of an SSIP assessment or client audit where thin systems show.
Keep the training matrix current
Competency cards, refresher dates, and site-specific inductions expire. Track expiry rather than discovering it at a client gate.
Build the renewal pack continuously
If the last twelve months of records are already structured, renewal is an export. If they aren't, it's a project.
Offline on site
Forms, photos, and signatures work with no signal. Records sync when the device is back on a network.
Actions with owners
Findings carry an owner, a due date, and closure evidence rather than sitting on a spreadsheet tab.
Incident detail captured at the time
Photos, witnesses, and immediate actions recorded on the day, so the RIDDOR decision is made on facts.
Training currency visible
Competency and refresher expiry tracked before a client gate finds it for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
RIDDOR, SSIP, and UK duty questions from energy and industrial contractors.
Disclaimer: This page is educational and is not legal advice. UK regulations and scheme criteria change, and reportable categories under RIDDOR are defined by specific lists. Consult HSE.gov.uk and a competent health and safety adviser for your own duties.
Content maintenance: last checked against HSE RIDDOR guidance, SSIP scheme materials, and UK regulation texts on July 25, 2026.
Make Next Year's Renewal an Export
BasinCheck captures risk assessments, permits, inspections, incidents, and closed actions as your crews work — so client audits and SSIP renewals draw on records that already exist.
Related: Permit to Work · Incident Tracking · Corrective Action Tracking · Offline Safety App · Pricing