Association Voice
Raising the
standard
ESSA director Andrew
Harrison announces a new
scheme to help organisers,
venues and exhibitors
distinguish between suppliers
that can deliver high standards
of health and safety practice
and management
E
SSA has sought to provide its
members with parity of voice in the
industry, a forum to resolve common
issues, and to champion our members’
probity, quality and reliability. ESSA
is now, more than ever before, in a
position to effect positive change
not just amongst its members but
throughout the events industry.
We are now taking our role a step
further with the launch of ‘ESSA
Accredited’ - the event accreditation
system we have designed to raise both
standards and expectations across the
industry. ESSA Accredited will allow
venues, organisers and exhibitors
to distinguish the contractors that
can, and cannot, meet the exacting
standards of health and safety practice
and management, as defined in CDM
2015 and other key areas of UK Health
and Safety law.
The notion of an accreditation scheme
has been on the table since ESSA’s
inception in 2007 and has been widely
discussed by members and at board
level. We’re justifiably proud of our ‘Use
an ESSA Member’ campaign, and we’ve
successfully highlighted the ESSA Bond,
Code of Conduct and Quality Charter
to venues, organisers and our industry’s
shared clients, all as part of a concerted
effort to evidence our belief that ESSA
members are the best choice for event
supplies and services.
But the time has come to take the
next step, and for ESSA to begin truly
making its mark on the industry by
leading the way on supplier and service
standards with its own accreditation
process focused solely on events. Of
course, there are many accreditation
schemes in operation that individually
address health and safety, construction,
sustainability and so on, and ESSA
Accredited will adopt, and in many
cases exceed, the standards set out in
them.
ESSA members have long asked ‘what
is the standard we are expected to
work to?’ On the back of this it was
important we didn’t simply invest
time in a ‘rubber stamp’ or vanity
accreditation and insisted that ESSA
Accredited had to be independently and
regularly audited. ESSA Accredited is
a scheme that stipulates and enforces
exacting standards - to drive quality
and excellence whilst providing our
members’ clients with the means
to simplify their risk mitigation.
ESSA Accredited is the tool for event
organisers and venues to ensure their
choice of contractor is demonstrably
competent, qualified, solvent and
reliable.
ESSA Accredited needs time to
develop, for members to ‘kick the tyres’
and to build its reputation. To begin
with we are launching ESSA Accredited
so that qualifying members can prove
that they are operating at the required
level to meet stage one requirements
of assessing competence under CDM
2015 and other management system
standards. This will include adopting
the principles of SSIP (Safety Schemes
in Procurement) member schemes such
as CHAS, Safemark and Greenlight. As
we refine and improve the scheme we
will be bringing new modules online in
2020, so that members can expand their
accreditation to include other important
compliance regimes including
sustainability, aligned with the
requirements of ISO 20121 Sustainable
Event Management.
Details about ESSA Accredited have
been and will be made available for
members who want to be the early-
adopters of this initiative, and they can
contact ESSA’s newly appointed Health
& Safety Project Manager, Josh Taylor,
to start their accreditation process.
As a sector, we need to impress
upon the industry the importance
of a universally recognised, credible,
relevant and independently verified
accreditation scheme. I would urge
organisers and venue operators to
contact me personally to discover
what ESSA Accredited will mean for
them, in terms of mitigating their risk,
simplifying their purchasing processes
and meeting their responsibility of due
diligence.
The board and the steering group
have invested time and resources into
ESSA Accredited, guiding the scheme
through its design and into reality. As
a result, I believe the scheme will be a
game-changer for the event industry
over time.
January — 37