Licenced small arb contractors?

[benedmonds]

Being arb approved has not made the tree work we do better. But it has made sure we are working to industry standards. As an employer it gives me the reassurance that I have everything in place as it should be. It might be a ball ache but it makes you step up and do stuff right, especially with H and S.. I don't agree with everything but in general I think its positive.

 

Pete if you feel you are repeatedly being knocked back for not being accredited, you can't afford not to become accredited. I can't believe firms go under due to the investment to become approved, it's not that expensive..

[skyhuck]

The more of us who are Arb Ac Approved the better IMO. When a customer tells me they are getting multiple quotes I will always advise they get AAAC, I can be pretty sure that anyone who has jumped through the hoops is going to have similar costs as me, therefore the quotes are far more likely to be comparable, unlike the guy down the pub with no training, insurance, waste disposal etc...

 

We are never going to make it mandatory like gas safe as allot of what we do is pretty simple and doesn't need regulation, but the more well known the scheme the better for those of us who are in it.. Mostly.. The last thing we need is another unknown organisation licencing small contractors for a fee..

 

Yeah!! cause every firm thats not AAAC is just some bloke down the pub

[skyhuck]

I don't recall ever being asked if I was AAAC.

 

I have worked next to a firm that is, the spiked an Ash that was being retained and pruned it in such a way that left one spindly leader that was obviously going to snap out on the next windy day, sure enough I was back there the other day and the top had snapped out.

[Ian C]

I was all for the aaac and very nearly jumped in, I have plenty of work and have never been asked for it but I thought it was the next step until the Bartletts cock up, all seems to have gone quite with that, has that depot lost the accreditation? I doubt it as it's Bartletts, if that had been a small Co they would of been stripped of it, it's a scheme that very few know about or care about, in reality it's just jobs for the boys! If the AA had stripped Bartletts of there accreditation it would of added a lot of value to the whole scheme Imo.

 

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[Ian C]

Yeah!! cause every firm thats not AAAC is just some bloke down the pub

You dowt boozer later on cos I am![emoji13]

 

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[skyhuck]

You dowt boozer later on cos I am![emoji13]

 

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Already there mate

[WesD]

I'm going to have to bite, what happened to bartletts?

 

 

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[richy_B]

Being arb approved has not made the tree work we do better. But it has made sure we are working to industry standards. As an employer it gives me the reassurance that I have everything in place as it should be. It might be a ball ache but it makes you step up and do stuff right, especially with H and S.. I don't agree with everything but in general I think its positive.

 

Pete if you feel you are repeatedly being knocked back for not being accredited, you can't afford not to become accredited. I can't believe firms go under due to the investment to become approved, it's not that expensive..

Exactly. If its losing you significant amounts of work then surely its a fairly essential 'overhead'. I fully appreciate its another cost to add to an already long list but the increased access to work surely helps cover this.

[Gary Prentice]

Anyway whose interested in the benifits and disbenifits of becoming an AAAC only has to give techie Paul a call - he don't bite!

 

Any can attend the free workshops about the scheme, without obligation, to get up to speed on the scheme. But if you're a small company, doing smaller domestic jobs, you'd better be prepared to up your game, because he'll tell you that you'll price yourself out of that market.

 

The workshops are really informative, worth going to even just to see if the schemes for you

[Marc]

I'm going to have to bite, what happened to bartletts?

 

 

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Not just Bartletts many others as well.

 

Being aaac doesn't actually mean anything, in the scheme of things it is very affordable to us to be part of the aaac scheme and the support and help they offer makes it worth it. For us.

 

I do get frustrated by it though, and when quoting it's not a selling point and I never make mention of the fact we are aaac approved as it really means nothing to the client imo, to say aaac contractors offer a higher quality service to industry approved code of practice is nonsense there are many companies who operate in our area who are not aaac approved who work to equally high standard to us and often cheaper.

 

For us and commercial clients having chas or similar is more of a selling point, the ability to produce good quality RAMS also makes the difference, having CSCS is not this has been waived for us on many sites as we currently do not have it.

 

I am looking at getting the core team through the "relevant" (I say relevant as some of us do have CSCS cards but they are just labourer cards) going for ROLO CSCS will cost us probably £700 per man with 8 to put through this, which is a bit of a burden but going forward for us it may help.