Crystal Clear Compliance Blog- Dec 2020
By Lucy Walsh
Our Year with You – Supporting Your Business with Health and Safety Know-How

I hope you don’t mind but we’ve decided to use our blog this month to blow a little fanfare for ourselves.
It’s not to come over as big-headed, it’s just that (and I know you’ll find this difficult to believe) it seems there are people who don’t know what we can do and we thought this may be a good way to tell you.
Well, that was quite a year
I’m not going to share any of the cliches or stock phrases we’ve been hearing in 2020 – we’ve all had quite enough of that. However, I can’t avoid mentioning COVID when so much of our work this year was helping our clients deal with the impact of the global pandemic. Being able to support businesses – from various sectors and of varying sizes – to develop and put in place COVID risk assessments, has been a major part of our work this year. Making sure everyone had safe returns to work with systems and processes for both employees and customers, has been completely new for us but incredibly valuable to many amazing businesses.
Working within construction projects, warehousing sites and manufacturing projects – creating task related risk assessments for clients has been more complex this year, ensuring specific COVID-19 measures are included. Knowing that you, our clients, are able to keep doing what you do – while providing the proper support for your staff and customers – is what we are here for.
Away from COVID, we’ve also supported a number of companies by providing online training – whether it’s Asbestos Awareness, Legionella Awareness, GDPR or DSE – when employees need Health and Safety, HR, or Management related training we’ve been able to provide it. This is what we’re here for, to support you with everything you need for your Health and Safety requirements.
It’s about making sure you have everything you need – we’ve done annual audits for a number of clients, carrying out a complete review of Health and Safety provision for their staff and sites to create a full report and action plan. A Health and Safety Health Check if you like.
For several of these clients, we were able to follow up by providing the Health and Safety documents, procedures, and systems they needed. And it’s not only paperwork, for one of our clients we completed the servicing of evacuation chairs at 2 premises and completed PAT testing on their equipment. It’s always great when – having presented a report to our client – we can reassure them they don’t have to deal with this list of actions themselves. We work to ensure you get all those boxes ticked with as little stress as possible.
CHAS – Helping You Get the Contracts You Want
CHAS is the Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme, a pre-approval scheme which means contractors can show potential clients they meet required health and safety standards.
One of our major projects this year was to support a client who was looking to get CHAS accreditation for his business. For our client this would reassure potential clients and enable him to win contracts he wouldn’t otherwise get.
Of course, accreditation like this is hugely beneficial when putting in tenders for work – but the process itself can be complex and time consuming. When you’re already managing your day to day business a project like this can seem impossible to achieve, which is why our client got in touch.
We were approached by the owner and director of a mechanical engineering company who works in construction – particularly in large construction projects and re-furbishing. Our client installs large heating and plumbing systems – gas works, air-conditioning, boilers, pumps and even entire plant rooms.
As a successful business they already had a Health and Safety system, but it was simple and not enough to get the accreditation they needed. We were able to create documents and procedures specific to their business, which worked easily with their processes and allowed them to develop excellent Health and Safety records. Our work with the company included providing and delivering training – on the new forms and documentation, but also on any aspects of Health and Safety required for the staff and accreditation (Asbestos Awareness and First Aid courses for example).
By working closely with the client, with direct access to their systems, we were able to create everything they needed to make the application for accreditation. Choosing to achieve the Premium level of CHAS meant our client needed to comply in several areas – COVID-19, Health and Safety, Quality, Environmental, Equal Opportunities and Financial. The client themselves completed the financial section but we worked with them to complete all the others.
Uploading and completing the application directly for the client, we were able to submit documents and answer questions so there was no interruption of the day to day running of the business. The timescales for such an application are fixed meaning – from submitting the application to having it checked – any concerns needed to be dealt with in just 10 days, something we could handle for the client which would have been incredibly difficult for a business handling their own ongoing projects.
Our client successfully gained the Premium level of CHAS accreditation within 2 weeks of the application. This has allowed them to tender for, and win, projects which would have been out of their reach without it.
They not only now have greatly improved systems and processes in place which will benefit staff going forward, they have the opportunity for higher profile and better paid projects which will help the business grow.
CHAS isn’t the only accreditation which can help your business grow, we’ve helped clients achieve ISO, Safe Contractor, LCA qualifications and others too – if this is something you’re interested in, do get in touch.
Looking Forward as Well as Back
There has been a lot going on at Crystal Clear Compliance this year, including new challenges, and we know we’re not the only ones.
If next year is going to bring you health and safety challenges, or the opportunity to grow, make sure you get the support you need to do it right.

Thanks for being part of our year
It’s been a busy one and we appreciate the support you’ve given us in 2020, let’s look forward to 2021 together.
If you have any questions about any Health and Safety challenges you may have, reviews and audits, training, or accreditations, we – at Crystal Clear Compliance – will be happy to help.
Give Lucy a call on 07748860076 / 01536 770249 or via email at Lwalsh@crystalclearcompliance.co.uk