edders23 wrote:
Local authority council tenders most of them now you have to pre qualify by filling out a large questionnaire and supplying a vast amount of documentation to demonstrate that your business is run to modern health and safety compliance standards and equality standards etc etc which is fine for a multinational but not for a one man band or small business that doesn't operate with an office full of clerks to deal with such nonsense far better to simplify the thing by just demonstrating that the necessary stuff like insurance vehicle standards etc are met and then checking up now and again to make sure that that is still the case
I don't really see that as an issue to be honest - but your points can be split up into separate parts;
to pre qualify by filling out a large questionnaire
supplying a vast amount of documentation to demonstrate that your business is run to modern health and safety compliance standards and equality standards
necessary stuff like insurance vehicle standards etc are met
and then checking up now and again to make sure that that is still the case
The pre-qualifying is in place to ensure those people who are able to do contracts are actually able?
the vast amounts of health and safety compliance is also a bit of a red herring as this will be in the majority of cases be covered by localised licensing requirements or certificates already held (NVQ etc)? The equality standards could merely be a bit of paper downloaded from the internet and modified for your own company.
Insurance and public liability are part of any normal contractual agreement - again - this is something that can be emailed.
Its bizarre - what you describe as red tape I'd call standards.