Guidance

Keep your ACS approval

What an SIA approved contractor must do to remain approved.

There are things you must do in order to stay approved.

What must you do?

Continue to meet the ACS eligibility requirements and standard

You must continue to meet the scheme’s eligibility requirements, fit and proper conditions and the ACS standard.

Abide by our approval conditions

You must adhere to the conditions of the scheme in order to remain approved.

We can impose additional, specific conditions on your approval if we need to.

Undergo an annual assessment

You must be assessed by one of our approved assessing bodies every year. This is so that we can be sure you still meet the standard we expect of an approved contractor.

You will need to pay your assessing body for their services. If you do not, we will withdraw your approval.

Re-register every year, renew every 3 years

We do not renew your approval automatically.

To maintain your approval you must re-register every year and renew every three years.

To re-register, each year you must:

  • submit an annual return form through your SIA online business account

  • pay the annual registration fee of £15 for each licensable individual deployed

To renew you must go through the same application process that you went through in order to be approved.

Tell us of any significant changes

You must tell us of any significant changes to your company.

Examples include:

  • a change in the name of your business

  • a change to the registered address, trading address or correspondence address of your business

  • any merger, acquisition, liquidation, bankruptcy or the like in relation to your business or its controlling minds

Comply with any guidance we issue

You must comply with any guidance we issue concerning the Approved Contractor Scheme.

Examples include:

  • guidance on the use of Licence Dispensation notices (LDNs)

  • guidance on the use of the ACS accreditation mark

  • guidance on the use of our Licence Assist and Licence Management services (which are only available to approved contractors)

Sub-contract only to other approved contractors

You may only sub-contract to other approved contractors unless we give explicit permission.

What happens if you do not meet these requirements?

We can apply additional conditions to your approval if there is a risk that you will:

  • fall below the ACS standard
  • fail to meet our standard ACS conditions

We will withdraw your approval if you:

  • fail to meet the conditions of your approval - that includes our standard ACS conditions and any specific conditions we have added
  • no longer meet the ACS standard

You can appeal

You can appeal against any additional conditions we apply. You can also appeal against our withdrawal of your approval.

The appeal process is explained in our ‘Apply for ACS Approval’ guidance.

Updates to this page

Published 11 August 2020
Last updated 12 October 2020 + show all updates
  1. Information added.

  2. First published.

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