Councils MUST prequalify by December 2019 for significant construction contracts issued by Roads and Maritime Services (RMS)

Austroads has developed the National Prequalification System (NPS) to create a harmonised framework for roadworks and bridgeworks construction contracts. Entities wishing to submit tenders to Australian Road Agencies for these contracts must be prequalified under the NPS. NSW Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) is a participant in the NPS. RMS has in turn placed this requirement on Councils.

Delivering services to the RMS is a significant source of financial revenue for many Councils. If this is the case for your Council, you must become prequalified in order to continue delivering those services.

Prequalification is a mandatory requirement for:

• All Roads and Maritime civil (road and bridge) construction contracts with an estimated value greater than $250,000 (excluding GST), which are subject to the seeking of quotations and/or competitive tenders where prequalification is a requirement;
• All Roads and Maritime contracts or subcontracts for works in the specialist categories listed in Clause 2.2 of the NPS Guidelines.

To become prequalified, Councils must (among other things) achieve and maintain formal certification in three management systems:

• ISO 9001: Quality Management
• ISO 14001: Environmental Management
• AS 4801: Work Health & Safety Management

Centium has specialist expertise in all three management systems, as well as proven expertise in Local Government practice and operations. We’re currently supporting a number of Councils through this process and can help you achieve certification by December 2019.

What Councils Should Do

Start by deconstructing the path to certification as follows:

How Centium Can Help

Gap Analysis is crucial. To give you an idea of how we can help, we’ve outlined the crucial features of Phase 1: Gap Analysis as follows:

Objectives

1. To conduct a gap analysis to identify the extent to which your Council meets the requirements of ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and AS 4801.
2. To derive an Action Plan that sets out the tasks that need to be undertaken in order to “fill those gaps”. “Filling those gaps” will be the subject of Phase 2: Development and Phase 3: Implementation.

Approach

Our approach is as follows:

1.   Collect all existing documentation relating to the three management systems.

2.   Conduct a desktop assessment of the documentation in terms of:

a. understanding how the management system functions at your Council; and

b. assessing to what extent the documentation meets the requirements of the standards

3.   Conduct a gap analysis audit against the requirements of all three Standards to determine the extent to which your Council complies and where it does not comply. This will require onsite visits and interviews with relevant staff to look for evidence of compliance against each of the requirements of all three Standards. This is an extensive task. An indication of the checks we conduct can be obtained upon further enquiry.

4.   Document the results of the gap analysis audit and derive a detailed Action Plan of what tasks Council needs to undertake to “fill those gaps” during:

Phase 2: Development; and

Phase 3: Implementation.

5.   Provide a fixed price cost to undertake Phases 2 and 3 and provide support during Phase 4.

Centium services are readily procured through the LG Procurement Panel (LGP218), as Management Consultants and/or Internal Auditors.

To view our RMS Prequalification Service Sheet click here

Call us to initiate Phase 1 or discuss a fully integrated 4-phase approach: