[Info] FAQs - Contractor Performance Management Systemhttps://www.spgroup.com.sg/dam/jcr:0fa082d5-7252-4189-b7e1-9cd9289ea049/FAQs%20-%20Contractor%20Performance%20Management%20System.pdfSingapore Power Group Contractor Performance Management System Frequently Asked Question Questions: General .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 1. How does your CPMS strengthen partnership and improve safety and performance standard? ... 6 2. Can I opt out from CPMS and choose to remain under the old CSM scheme? ...................................... 6 3. Will CPMS disadvantage or penalize contractors who have more contracts with SP? ......................... 6 4. We used to be able to get incentives for every contract. Now, I must be in the top 5 to get incentives, in fact you are actually not encouraging us to do the right things. Are we taking a step back? ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 5. Why do SP only reward top 5 contractors? In order to motivate us, you should reward whoever that meets certain cut off scores. Similarly, is it fair to suspend the bottom 2 contractors if they have done well but ranked last nonetheless? .................................................................................................................. 7 6. What is the purpose of suspending contractors if your objective is to partner us? ................................ 7 7. For those contractors who is just doing supplying of cables, how does it apply to this CPMS as cable supply category is not covered under CPMS? ......................................................................................... 8 8. Contractors may participate in various SP projects (i.e. Cable laying, milling-and-patching, buildingand-construction etc.) under a single company name and under different roles such as maincontractor and sub-contractor. Kindly confirm if only the main-contractors will be subjected to CPMS, please. .................................................................................................................................................................... 8 9. What happen to my current contracts? Will you make any changes to them? ...................................... 9 10. Are all my demerit points will be wiped clean from 1 Oct? ............................................................................. 9 11. How can I be assured that the demerit points will cease after 1 Oct given it is currently in our contracts? ............................................................................................................................................................................ 9 12. What about my safety incentives? Will it be void after 1 Oct? ...................................................................... 9 13. If I am issued with demerit points just before 1 Oct that cause me to exceed 100 points, will I still be suspended for next 3 months or will it be reset after 1 Oct? Likewise, how does it work if I am serving my suspension now that straddle into 1 Oct?....................................................................................... 10 14. I have many contracts with SP. Some still have quite runway to go while some have only a few months left and some just started less than one month before your quarter end or annual end. So which contracts will be caught under your CPMS for a particular quarter or year?.............................. 10 15. Does this mean that a contractor just gets a job with you at Q4 will have an unfair advantage over contractors who have been carrying out work over the entire year or have many jobs during the year since he has little chance to make mistakes? ............................................................................................. 10 16. How does your suspension work? Assuming I am suspended from Jan to end Mar. There is a tender published in Feb but close only in Apr. Can I participate? ............................................................... 11 17. Similarly, I have submitted my tender when it closed in Mar but you have not awarded yet. But I get suspended from Apr to end Jun, am I still considered for the tender?............................................... 11 18. If someone has already been suspended for the rest of the year already and also, score less than 50 for a quarter during the year or rank bottom 2 at end of year, how do all these overlapping suspension work? ............................................................................................................................................................ 11 19. What will happen to my existing contracts when I get suspended from tender? ................................. 11 Contractor Performance Assessment (CPA) ................................................................................................................... 12 20. What is the annual period of assessment for your CPMS? Given you have start only in 1 Oct 16, when will the first annual period end?.................................................................................................................... 12 21. For the first annual period starting 1 Oct 16, if it is going to be a shortened one instead of full 12 months, will the reward be prorated? Likewise, the suspension period? ............................................... 12 22. How is my reward computed, especially if I have many contracts with varied amounts and outstanding contract periods? ................................................................................................................................... 12 23. What happen if there is tied score that results in more than 5 contractors in Top 5? Likewise, what happen if same thing happens in bottom 2? ....................................................................................................... 12 24. How are you going to rank us? Given the nature of work are different across contractors, is it fair to rank us together? You have to agree that a small contractor is not comparable to a big one. Likewise, someone doing a simple job cannot be compared with another one doing a complex job. ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 13 25. If I happen to score less than 50 for Q4, will I get suspended in the next 3 months which is actually a new year or will this be wiped clean instead since you are starting a new year? ............................. 13 26. Kindly confirm if the bottom-two-annual-ranks and/or BUS suspension in one of the category of work where the non-conformance or violation is unique to the category of work, would affect tender participation in all categories or specific to the category where non-conformance or violation is found please .............................................................................................................................................. 13 27. Who will be assessing me? How do I know if it is an objective process? ............................................... 13 28. Will the CPMS scores be reset annually? ............................................................................................................... 14 29. Can I confirm that for each critical incident, points are deducted at my overall average quarterly score and not just for the contract in question? So, if I have three violations, there will be three points deduction? ........................................................................................................................................................... 14 30. For critical incidents, why are points deducted at contractor level and not only against the contract in question? Is this fair especially if the rest of the contracts are performing well? Should one poor contract wipe out all the other good work I have done? Again, this seems to put contractors with more contracts at a higher risk of scoring poorly. ............................................................................................. 14 31. Can you share with us the detailed scorecard and weightage you will be using to assess us? Just like exam, we must prepare ourselves. .................................................................................................................. 15 32. In the worst case, can a quarterly score go into negative range? ............................................................... 15 33. If I have just started work on a new contract a few weeks or days before the end of a quarter or my work is completed very shortly after the start of a quarter, how will I be scored for the quarter? ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 34. Do you tell us where we stand or will I know that I get suspended out of the blue after your end of year assessment or quarterly assessment and how do I know if I am suspended or win the reward? Will the public know who is suspended or rewarded? ................................................................ 15 Tender Evaluation Framework (TEF) .................................................................................................................................. 16 35. How do I know that the same standard will be applied to all of us when you carry out your SET assessment? Who will assess us? ............................................................................................................................ 16 36. If I fail your SET the first time, can I apply again to be reassessed? Is there a limit to the number of reassessment I can take in a year? ........................................................................................................................... 16 37. Will you be helping us to improve if I fail the first SET so that we can improve and ultimately qualify? ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 16 38. You say we will be assessed for the SET annually. Is your SET valid annually based on your year end or for one year from the date I am qualify? If it is the later, does it mean that I got cleared in Jan and because your year end is Mar, I must do one more assessment in again to be valid for Apr to Mar next year again? If so, this does not make sense and waste our time........................................ 17 39. How does Turnkey Contractor complete the SET questionnaire as they are mainly supplying cable? ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 40. If we understand your scheme correctly, there will not be past 2 years CPMS records for you to score us in the initial period. But if I have been doing a good job, you will agree that I should be given advantage over new ones at tender evaluation from 1 Oct? How will this be handled? ..... 18 41. What happen if there is a tie at your Q-P score stage? .................................................................................... 18 42. Kindly confirm if the weightage of CPMS to Quality score, and weightage of Quality score to Price score are transparent to contractors, please. ....................................................................................................... 18 Business under Surveillance (BUS) ...................................................................................................................................... 19 43. Does it apply by contract or by contractor? How does this work? ............................................................. 19 44. Why do you apply the BUS by contract but aggregate them at contractor level? Is this correct as the nature of work for each contract (or even work within same contract) can be different? ...... 19 45. The critical incidents are based on whose observations, project officers or safety officers’ inspections? ...................................................................................................................................................................... 19 46. What happens if a project officer on a routine site supervision basis identifies major nonconformances? Does it land us on BUS? ............................................................................................................... 19 47. How do you count the 3 major non-conformances? ......................................................................................... 20 48. If there are 2 or more major non-conformances observations during a safety inspection, is the number of non-conformance taken a 1 or based on the number of observations? Does the number of major non-conformances and number of bus get reset every quarter? ............................................ 20 49. How do you count the number of BUS? Is it one for safety and a separate one for operation violations? ......................................................................................................................................................................... 20 50. If I am on 2 BUS programmes for safety related violations, and I then have a BUS programme for cable damage, why should they be counted together? They are not related, is it fair and correct? ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 21 51. What happen if I get offloaded after 2 BUS programmes but before the quarter ends, I get another BUS programme, does this mean I am on 3 programmes now and will be suspended till end of the year? ............................................................................................................................................................................. 21 52. If I am on a BUS programme and another BUS programme is triggered, is it still counted as 1 st programme or the 2 nd programme will start and how will this work? Does this mean the total time for the 2 BUS programme s is now shorter than the standard 14 weeks? ................................................. 21 53. If I am on a BUS program and there are major non-conformances observed, does the counting for 3 major non-conformances start again; or am I given an amnesty since I am under rehabilitation? .................................................................................................................................................................. 22 54. If someone committed at the same time say two critical violations at the same time inspections, is the consequence one or two BUS programs? What about the point’s deduction? ........................... 22 55. If a safety major non-conformance or critical violation also results in cable damage, is the consequence one or two BUS programs? What about the point’s deduction? .................................. 22 56. How do you ascertain that I can or cannot be offloaded from the BUS after 5th week or 7th week? Who will do that? ........................................................................................................................................................... 23 57. What happen if I still cannot get offloaded after the 3rd BUS? .................................................................... 23 58. If someone got 3 BUS programs in Q1, he will be suspended till end of the year, i.e. for approx. 9 months. If someone gets only 3 BUS programs in Q4, he will only be suspended for a much shorter period. Is this fair? ......................................................................................................................................................... 23 59. If I am on a BUS program and it straddle across two quarters? Which quarter will this BUS be marked against? ............................................................................................................................................................. 23 60. If I am on a BUS program on Q1 and your week 5/7 straddles into Q2, and assuming I do not manage to get myself offloaded, you will put me on another BUS program again. Does this new BUS count as BUS program 2 for Q1 or program 1 for Q2? ............................................................................ 24 61. If I am on 2 BUS programs in Q2 and it happens that either one or both straddles into Q3? And I did not get myself offloaded in Q3 and need to trigger the next BUS, does it mean my 3rd BUS counts for Q2 or does it mean I am lucky and this will be counted as a fresh 1st BUS for Q3? ....... 24 62. You say that if I cannot get off the BUS after the 3rd time in a quarter, you will not want to spend time and resource with me anymore. Can I confirm this is the case? What about if I am on 3 BUS rides in Q1 already and either did not get myself offloaded or commit a violation that leads me to another BUS during the same quarter, do you mean there is no more BUS ride for me in the quarter? .............................................................................................................................................................................. 24 63. If I am on only 1 BUS for Q1, likewise for Q2 and Q3, will you still put me on a 4th BUS if I get myself a violation either in Q3 or Q4 again? ...................................................................................................................... 24 64. If you give up on a contractor after 3 BUS programs and not going to put him on another BUS, are you not encouraging “don’t care” attitude from those erroneous contractors and at the same time goes against the your aim to work with and help contractors improve? And it means you are not taking any more action against them, isn’t this unfair to the responsible ones? .................................... 25 65. If you mean that you will not trigger any more BUS only if a contractor cannot get himself offloaded after 3 BUS programs or trigger a 4th BUS in the same quarter and everything reset after end of each quarter, then does this mean that this contractor if a poor one, will require to be on BUS again if he commits violations in the next quarter? Doesn’t this go against your concept of not wanting to spend more time with contractors who do not want to change? ........................................................ 25 66. I have only one contract and one work site under it. What happen if I am already near the end of the site work and am put on BUS but the remaining work itself will not have sufficient time for me to complete the BUS ride? ......................................................................................................................................... 25 67. For cable damages, you mean we will be on BUS regardless whether it is our fault or not? .......... 26 68. Do you mean stop work on site or stop issuing new work orders? .......................................................... 26 69. When on BUS, are the stop work and other training measures applicable to only the site involved or for all sites under the same contract? How does it work? ....................................................................... 26 70. I have a few sites under a contract doing different work. I get onto BUS because of one violation in a particular site. Does it mean that if I do not have enough work for that site to complete the BUS program, my other sites will have to substitute for it despite of different nature? ..................... 26 71. Is it practical to impose stop work if the road is opened and need to be closed ASAP to meet regulatory requirements? Likewise, if it is a critical urgent work like supply restoration in the case of cable damage? .......................................................................................................................................................... 27 72. How does the BUS scheme help contractors instead of punishing them? In what way is it a partnership arrangement? .......................................................................................................................................... 27 73. Why need to suspend me if I am on more than 2 BUS in a quarter? ......................................................... 27 74. If you keep sending us on BUS, how do complete our work? ................................................................... 27 General 1. How does your CPMS strengthen partnership and improve safety and performance standard? CPMS adopts 3 main components to help SP work together with our contractors to improve both safety and quality standards: a. Contractor Performance Assessment helps to give our contractors timely feedback on their performance and identify areas where improvement is needed. It also includes an incentive scheme where top performers will receive a significant incentive at the end of each Assessment Year. b. The BUS programme is a stop and assist programme where SP deploys our personnel to help contractors identify root causes and mitigation measures when incidents occur in the course of their work. c. The new Tender Evaluation Framework that takes into account the contractor’s past CPMS scores will give due recognition to contractors who have consistently performed well by giving them an advantage in their tenders. 2. Can I opt out from CPMS and choose to remain under the old CSM scheme? No, this is a SP’s company policy that we will apply to all in the spirit of transparency and fairness. 3. Will CPMS disadvantage or penalize contractors who have more contracts with SP? No. SP awards multiple contracts to a contractor on the basis that the contractor must be able to cope with multiple contracts without compromise to safety or quality. Hence this system will not penalize those with more contracts if they can still manage them well. We discourage contractors bidding for new tenders that are beyond their capacity as it places lives in danger and the project at higher risk of failure. 4. We used to be able to get incentives for every contract. Now, I must be in the top 5 to get incentives, in fact you are actually not encouraging us to do the right things. Are we taking a step back? Safety and quality standards should be maintained consistently across all contracts. Hence a contractor level incentive scheme would better support this objective than the previous individual contract based incentive. In addition, the new incentive is now pegged at a higher quantum of 2% (capped at $100,000) of the contractor’s total contract value for the particular Assessment Year. This means that a typical contractor with Four (4) 2-year term contracts who perform consistently well may be able to get up to $200,000 over 2 years instead of up to $120,000 under the old scheme. 5. Why do SP only reward top 5 contractors? In order to motivate us, you should reward whoever that meets certain cut off scores. Similarly, is it fair to suspend the bottom 2 contractors if they have done well but ranked last nonetheless? As you know the Singapore environment is becoming increasingly more difficult to work with higher expectation from public and more congested site conditions. Hence CPMS seeks to establish a continuous improvement framework by on-going competition so that complacency will not set in. This allows us to provide a higher quantum for the incentive and also give contractors a higher level of achievement and reputation. 6. What is the purpose of suspending contractors if your objective is to partner us? Suspension is only a temporary break from giving more contracts and is only applied if the contractor in question is facing serious issues or persistently unable to fix the current issues. Hence the temporary break is important to allow such contractors to focus in getting their fundamentals correct and not aggravate their situation by overstretching their capacity to take on more work. 7. For those contractors who is just doing supplying of cables, how does it apply to this CPMS as cable supply category is not covered under CPMS? For tenders where the scope of work is only for the supply of cables, CPMS does not apply. Hence companies that only engage in the supply of cables can participate. For tenders where the scope of work is for the supply AND installation of cables, CPMS will apply. All companies bidding for such jobs would require to be SET pre-qualified. Companies that only supply cables can participate through one of the following ways: a. Participate in the bid through a local installation contractor that is SET Prequalify b. Participate in the bid themselves by obtaining SET pre-qualification for their company. During the initial implementation of the CPMS, an exception may be granted on a case-by-case basis to companies that are not able to participate through either methods explained above. The exception may be granted if the company fulfills the following criteria: � � � Company is a pure supplier that does not carry out any Construction- Related work Appoints a sub-contractor that undertakes ALL installation and construction work under the contract. The appointed sub-contractor must be a SET qualified Subcontractor 8. Contractors may participate in various SP projects (i.e. Cable laying, milling-andpatching, building-and-construction etc.) under a single company name and under different roles such as main-contractor and sub-contractor. Kindly confirm if only the main-contractors will be subjected to CPMS, please. CPMS is applicable to the Main-Contractor. However, it must be noted that the Main Contractor is also responsible for their sub-contractors performance. During the initial implementation of the CPMS, an exception may be granted on a case-by-case basis to apply CPMS to the sub-contractor if the Main Contractor fulfills the following criteria: � � � Main Contractor is a pure supplier that does not carry out any Construction-Related work Appoints a sub-contractor that undertakes ALL installation and construction work under the contract. The appointed sub-contractor must be a SET qualified Subcontractor 9. What happen to my current contracts? Will you make any changes to them? For any existing contract that CPMS will apply, their demerit point scheme will be discontinued with effect from 1 Oct 2016. Incentive Scheme will continue for current contracts. 10. Are all my demerit points will be wiped clean from 1 Oct? Yes. 11. How can I be assured that the demerit points will cease after 1 Oct given it is currently in our contracts? We will be sending a letter to contractors with on-going contract to formalize the removal of the demerit point scheme. 12. What about my safety incentives? Will it be void after 1 Oct? As the main objective of the CPMS is about improvement and raising standards, any incentive scheme that is already incorporated into existing contracts will be honored by SP if one meets the criteria. At the same time the same work will also be eligible for incentive under the new CPMS. 13. If I am issued with demerit points just before 1 Oct that cause me to exceed 100 points, will I still be suspended for next 3 months or will it be reset after 1 Oct? Likewise, how does it work if I am serving my suspension now that straddle into 1 Oct? Any Suspension imposed under the current demerit point scheme before 1 Oct 2016 will continue to apply accordingly until its expiry. 14. I have many contracts with SP. Some still have quite runway to go while some have only a few months left and some just started less than one month before your quarter end or annual end. So which contracts will be caught under your CPMS for a particular quarter or year? Any contract (under the CPMS eligible categories) that are still valid as of 1 Oct 2016 will fall under the new CPMS. This means that the BUS programme will apply to them until the expiry of the contract. For CPMS Score, any contract that have works carried out in that quarter or part thereof will be scored at the end of that quarter. Annual assessment will only apply for Contractors who have at least 2 quarterly scores. 15. Does this mean that a contractor just gets a job with you at Q4 will have an unfair advantage over contractors who have been carrying out work over the entire year or have many jobs during the year since he has little chance to make mistakes? No, he will only get a score for Q4 based on that one job in Q4 but will not be eligible for the annual assessment if there are no other scores in Q1 – Q3. 16. How does your suspension work? Assuming I am suspended from Jan to end Mar. There is a tender published in Feb but close only in Apr. Can I participate? Suspension is placed on the contractor’s ability to submit a tender. Hence if the tender only closes in April after the suspension has been lifted, then the contractor can still participate. 17. Similarly, I have submitted my tender when it closed in Mar but you have not awarded yet. But I get suspended from Apr to end Jun, am I still considered for the tender? You can be considered for the tender however we will take into account the reasons for the Apr – Jun suspension when evaluating your tender. 18. If someone has already been suspended for the rest of the year already and also, score less than 50 for a quarter during the year or rank bottom 2 at end of year, how do all these overlapping suspension work? Suspension will run concurrently until the end of the longer suspension period. 19. What will happen to my existing contracts when I get suspended from tender? Your existing contract will continue till the end date. But if one continues to perform poorly such as continued to have occurrence of critical incidents, we need to consider whether he is even fit to continue to carry out work for SP under existing contracts. Contractor Performance Assessment (CPA) 20. What is the annual period of assessment for your CPMS? Given you have start only in 1 Oct 16, when will the first annual period end? The annual assessment period will start from 1 Apr and end on 31 Mar the next year. The first annual assessment will be carried out in March 2017 but will only apply for contractors that have scores in at least 2 quarters. 21. For the first annual period starting 1 Oct 16, if it is going to be a shortened one instead of full 12 months, will the reward be prorated? Likewise, the suspension period? The reward will be contract value based on the 6 month period from 1 Oct 16 to 31 Mar 17 and the suspension period will remain the same. 22. How is my reward computed, especially if I have many contracts with varied amounts and outstanding contract periods? Reward = 2 % of Sum of Annual value of the each contracts (cap at $100K) Annual Value of each contract is calculated by: Contract Sum / Contract Period (weeks) x No. of weeks (or part thereof) of works were carried out in that year. 23. What happen if there is tied score that results in more than 5 contractors in Top 5? Likewise, what happen if same thing happens in bottom 2? We will rank out all the contractors based on their score. The first 5 will get the reward and if the 6th or subsequent position contractor has the same score as the one in the 5th position, they will all get the same reward. For the bottom 2, we will use the no. of critical incidents and major non-conformances to determine the one to suspend. 24. How are you going to rank us? Given the nature of work are different across contractors, is it fair to rank us together? You have to agree that a small contractor is not comparable to a big one. Likewise, someone doing a simple job cannot be compared with another one doing a complex job. Although different contractors may carry out different works, all contractors under CPMS carry out physical construction or civil work where safety and quality plays a critical role regardless of the job’s size and complexity. A simple job can easily cause fatality if safe work procedures are not used as a complex job. And a complex job means that the risk are even higher and hence all the more important to carry out the work safely. 25. If I happen to score less than 50 for Q4, will I get suspended in the next 3 months which is actually a new year or will this be wiped clean instead since you are starting a new year? No. Quarter to Quarter suspension will still continue across the New Year. 26. Kindly confirm if the bottom-two-annual-ranks and/or BUS suspension in one of the category of work where the non-conformance or violation is unique to the category of work, would affect tender participation in all categories or specific to the category where non-conformance or violation is found please Any suspension imposed under CPMS will be applied across all categories. 27. Who will be assessing me? How do I know if it is an objective process? Scoring will be done by the relevant sections together with our Group Safety. No one individual can determine the CPMS score so that there is a check and balance in the process to ensure objectivity. 28. Will the CPMS scores be reset annually? Each annual assessment will only take into account the scores for that particular year. However, all quarterly Contractor performance score will be kept in our database for reference in evaluating new tenders. 29. Can I confirm that for each critical incident, points are deducted at my overall average quarterly score and not just for the contract in question? So, if I have three violations, there will be three points deduction? Critical Incidents are taken into account at the Contractor level as these are very serious incidents. Each violation will result in its own reduction in score. 30. For critical incidents, why are points deducted at contractor level and not only against the contract in question? Is this fair especially if the rest of the contracts are performing well? Should one poor contract wipe out all the other good work I have done? Again, this seems to put contractors with more contracts at a higher risk of scoring poorly. These are very serious incidents that reflect breaches in very fundamental procedures and mindsets which mean a breach in one contract can also happen in others. Moreover these incidents can have very dire consequences of one or multiple fatalities. Multiple contracts does not necessarily mean higher risk if the fundamental preventive measures are effectively in place. It usually happens if the contractor has overstretched his resources and cannot cope hence resulting in these serious lapses. 31. Can you share with us the detailed scorecard and weightage you will be using to assess us? Just like exam, we must prepare ourselves. The detailed scorecard is based on the specific requirements of the contract where the broad areas of focus have been explained. However, the specific questions in the scorecard is confidential to SP. 32. In the worst case, can a quarterly score go into negative range? No. The lowest score is zero. 33. If I have just started work on a new contract a few weeks or days before the end of a quarter or my work is completed very shortly after the start of a quarter, how will I be scored for the quarter? If the initial period is not sufficient for scoring for new contracts, the sections carrying out the scoring can defer it to the next quarter. For expiring contracts, any remaining contract period in a quarter will be scored accordingly. If any scoring criteria is not applicable, it will not be considered for scoring. 34. Do you tell us where we stand or will I know that I get suspended out of the blue after your end of year assessment or quarterly assessment and how do I know if I am suspended or win the reward? Will the public know who is suspended or rewarded? At the end of each quarter, contractors will be given a grade that reflects their performance in the past quarter. At the end of each Assessment Year, the top 5 contractors that obtain the incentive will be announced publicly. In the spirit of full transparency, SP Group will publish the identities of contractors in each grade from next quarter onwards FY16/17 Q2. The contractors who are being suspended will be informed directly and published in our website. Tender Evaluation Framework (TEF) 35. How do I know that the same standard will be applied to all of us when you carry out your SET assessment? Who will assess us? The SET assessment will be carried out by a committee to ensure a consistent and robust assessment process. 36. If I fail your SET the first time, can I apply again to be reassessed? Is there a limit to the number of reassessment I can take in a year? If you fail the first time, you can apply to be reassessed from the beginning of the next calendar quarter. The prequalification is required for each financial year (Apr-Mar) and is valid till the end of the financial year. Note: in the first year of CPMS, the prequalification is valid up to end March 2018. During the FY, SP can demand prequalified contractor for prequalification again when there are significant changes on the safety background (e.g. if the contractor committed a serious incident at either SP’s site or other client’s site or under MOM stop work order etc) 37. Will you be helping us to improve if I fail the first SET so that we can improve and ultimately qualify? SP will help you identify the areas that require improvement but it will be up to the individual companies to take the necessary actions. 38. You say we will be assessed for the SET annually. Is your SET valid annually based on your year end or for one year from the date I am qualify? If it is the later, does it mean that I got cleared in Jan and because your year end is Mar, I must do one more assessment in again to be valid for Apr to Mar next year again? If so, this does not make sense and waste our time. The Annual SET assessment will be conducted from 1 Feb to 31 Mar that will grant SET qualification that is valid for 1 year starting from 1 Apr. If the application by the contractor overlaps with the annual SET assessment period, then the validity period shall commence from the date of grant until the end of the next assessment year (i.e. 1 Apr – 31 Mar). Any application outside of the annual assessment period will take up to 2 months to process and hence contractors are strongly advised to apply early. 39. How does Turnkey Contractor complete the SET questionnaire as they are mainly supplying cable? SET aims to inculcate a mindset of safety being the highest priority among our contractors, hence any company that wishes to assume the role of the main contracting party with SP must meet the requirements of SET pre-qualification. During the initial implementation of the CPMS, an exception may be granted on a case-by-case basis to apply CPMS to the sub-contractor if the Main Contractor fulfills the following criteria: � � � Main Contractor is a pure supplier that does not carry out any Construction-Related work Appoints a sub-contractor that undertakes ALL installation and construction work under the contract. The appointed sub-contractor must be a SET qualified Subcontractor 40. If we understand your scheme correctly, there will not be past 2 years CPMS records for you to score us in the initial period. But if I have been doing a good job, you will agree that I should be given advantage over new ones at tender evaluation from 1 Oct? How will this be handled? In the initial launch of CPMS, all contractors new or old would start afresh as it would not be fair to measure anyone since the system have not been made known previously. However, over time with the passing of each quarter, your actual CPMS score will be taken into account which will start giving good performing contractors the advantage over poor performing and new contractors. 41. What happen if there is a tie at your Q-P score stage? SP will take all other relevant factors into consideration before making a choice. 42. Kindly confirm if the weightage of CPMS to Quality score, and weightage of Quality score to Price score are transparent to contractors, please. Both Price and Quality is important to SP. The weightage for each may vary depending on the nature of works involved. The specific weightage for each tender is however confidential and will not be made known to Contractors. Business under Surveillance (BUS) 43. Does it apply by contract or by contractor? How does this work? The BUS program applies at the contract level. It is activated when there are occurrences of critical incidents or frequent major non-conformances. Frequent major NCs means 3 or more inspections in a quarter for the same contract was found to have major NCs. 44. Why do you apply the BUS by contract but aggregate them at contractor level? Is this correct as the nature of work for each contract (or even work within same contract) can be different? The no of BUS program aggregated at the contractor level reflect the overall safety performance of the contractor. While the nature of work may vary from one contract to another, the safety management practices are very much the same. 45. The critical incidents are based on whose observations, project officers or safety officers’ inspections? Critical incidents can be identified by any SP personnel (not limited to only those from projects or GS&H) and members of public. For major NCs, only those identified by GS&H will be counted for the purposes of activating the BUS program. 46. What happens if a project officer on a routine site supervision basis identifies major non-conformances? Does it land us on BUS? For major NCs, only those identified by GS&H will be counted for the purposes of activating the BUS program. However, for any issues discovered by project officers, GS&H will follow up with the project officers to work with the contractor on corrective actions. 47. How do you count the 3 major non-conformances? When one or more major non-conformances areas spotted in three separate safety inspection, the BUS program will be activated for that contract. However, the total number of non-conformances from the three inspections will be used in the quarterly CPMS Safety Evaluation, which measures the quarterly safety performance. 48. If there are 2 or more major non-conformances observations during a safety inspection, is the number of non-conformance taken a 1 or based on the number of observations? Does the number of major non-conformances and number of bus get reset every quarter? It will be taken as 1 for the purposes of the BUS program. However, the total number of non-conformances from the three inspections will be used in the quarterly CPMS Safety Evaluation, which measures the quarterly safety performance. Yes, the number of non-conformances for BUS program purpose is reset in the new quarter. 49. How do you count the number of BUS? Is it one for safety and a separate one for operation violations? In a calendar quarter, a BUS will be computed as on the start date of the BUS and not its completion date. If, arising from the first BUS, a contractor is required to attend a second BUS and the second BUS starts within the same calendar quarter, this will count as 2 BUS programmes for that calendar quarter. If the second BUS starts on the next quarter, then the computation will be one (1) BUS programme for each of the two calendar quarters. The Conditions on BUS (Safety) and BUS (Quality) are different. When counting the no of BUS at contractor level, we will include all types of BUS programmes activated. 50. If I am on 2 BUS programmes for safety related violations, and I then have a BUS programme for cable damage, why should they be counted together? They are not related, is it fair and correct? The aggregation of BUS programmes at the contractor is a reflection of overall contractor performance. Both Safety and Quality is important to SP. 51. What happen if I get offloaded after 2 BUS programmes but before the quarter ends, I get another BUS programme, does this mean I am on 3 programmes now and will be suspended till end of the year? Yes. Any contractors who have more than two BUS programmes activated within a quarter will be suspended from further tender till the end of the Assessment Year. 52. If I am on a BUS programme and another BUS programme is triggered, is it still counted as 1 st programme or the 2 nd programme will start and how will this work? Does this mean the total time for the 2 BUS programme s is now shorter than the standard 14 weeks? If you are on the BUS program and another BUS program is activated for nonrelated issues, then both BUS programs will run concurrently to address the different problems. If Both BUS programs are activated for the same reason, then the current BUS is superseded by the 2nd BUS. During the BUS period, Contractor is expected to stay more vigilant on safety during the BUS Period. 53. If I am on a BUS program and there are major non-conformances observed, does the counting for 3 major non-conformances start again; or am I given an amnesty since I am under rehabilitation? During the BUS program, if new major safety non-conformance was spotted that meets the condition of BUS, the 2nd BUS program will be activated. Likewise, if a contractor commits a critical violation during a BUS program before he gets offloaded, the contractor will have a new BUS program activated immediately. 54. If someone committed at the same time say two critical violations at the same time inspections, is the consequence one or two BUS programs? What about the point’s deduction? If they were different critical violations then two separate BUS programs will be activated to address the different issues. If they are the same type of critical violation then only 1 BUS program will be activated. However, the two critical violations will be counted in the quarterly CPMS evaluation and each will be subject to point’s deduction. 55. If a safety major non-conformance or critical violation also results in cable damage, is the consequence one or two BUS programs? What about the point’s deduction? 1 BUS program will be activated if the cause for both violations are is due to the same incident. However, the separate violations will result in separate point reductions accordingly. 56. How do you ascertain that I can or cannot be offloaded from the BUS after 5th week or 7th week? Who will do that? At the end of the 5th or the 7th week, GS&H or Operation Audit (whichever is relevant) will carry out the inspection. The contractor will be offloaded when mitigation measures have been properly implemented and there is no further non-conformance spotted. 57. What happen if I still cannot get offloaded after the 3rd BUS? Firstly, any contractor who is on board BUS more than two times in a quarter will be suspended from future tender till the end of Assessment Year. For a contractor who can’t be offloaded after the 3rd BUS, we will review on case by case whether the contractor is still suitable to work in SP environment. 58. If someone got 3 BUS programs in Q1, he will be suspended till end of the year, i.e. for approx. 9 months. If someone gets only 3 BUS programs in Q4, he will only be suspended for a much shorter period. Is this fair? Suspension is for the purpose of allowing contractor time to focus on fixing the problems at hand so that he does not continue to perpetuate the same problems further in new contracts which may aggravate the problem and result in more serious consequences such as debarment or termination. 59. If I am on a BUS program and it straddle across two quarters? Which quarter will this BUS be marked against? The BUS is counted on the starting date. 60. If I am on a BUS program on Q1 and your week 5/7 straddles into Q2, and assuming I do not manage to get myself offloaded, you will put me on another BUS program again. Does this new BUS count as BUS program 2 for Q1 or program 1 for Q2? The new BUS is counted in Q2. 61. If I am on 2 BUS programs in Q2 and it happens that either one or both straddles into Q3? And I did not get myself offloaded in Q3 and need to trigger the next BUS, does it mean my 3rd BUS counts for Q2 or does it mean I am lucky and this will be counted as a fresh 1st BUS for Q3? The BUS program is counted from the start of the program. Hence the last BUS will be counted as in Q3. 62. You say that if I cannot get off the BUS after the 3rd time in a quarter, you will not want to spend time and resource with me anymore. Can I confirm this is the case? What about if I am on 3 BUS rides in Q1 already and either did not get myself offloaded or commit a violation that leads me to another BUS during the same quarter, do you mean there is no more BUS ride for me in the quarter? It is unlikely to get more than 2 BUS in a quarter. If it happened, the contractor will be suspended from future tender till the end of Assessment Year. The contractor will also be under closely monitored to determine his suitability to continue working for SP even under existing contracts. 63. If I am on only 1 BUS for Q1, likewise for Q2 and Q3, will you still put me on a 4th BUS if I get myself a violation either in Q3 or Q4 again? Yes, because this will only be the 2nd BUS in Q3 or 1st BUS in Q4 given number of BUS is reset every quarter. Under this situation, we will review whether you are still the suitable contractor to SP and work in SP environment. 64. If you give up on a contractor after 3 BUS programs and not going to put him on another BUS, are you not encouraging “don’t care” attitude from those erroneous contractors and at the same time goes against the your aim to work with and help contractors improve? And it means you are not taking any more action against them, isn’t this unfair to the responsible ones? For this situation, the contractor will be closely monitored by SP and we will review case by case whether you are still the suitable contractor to SP and work in SP environment. Our main concern here is safety of the workers. If the contractor is found to be no longer suitable to carry out works safely, his current contracts may also be terminated. 65. If you mean that you will not trigger any more BUS only if a contractor cannot get himself offloaded after 3 BUS programs or trigger a 4th BUS in the same quarter and everything reset after end of each quarter, then does this mean that this contractor if a poor one, will require to be on BUS again if he commits violations in the next quarter? Doesn’t this go against your concept of not wanting to spend more time with contractors who do not want to change? For this situation, the contractor will be closely monitored by SP and we will review case by case whether you are still the suitable contractor to SP and work in SP environment. Our main concern here is safety of the workers. If the contractor is found to be no longer suitable to carry out works safely, his current contracts may also be terminated. 66. I have only one contract and one work site under it. What happen if I am already near the end of the site work and am put on BUS but the remaining work itself will not have sufficient time for me to complete the BUS ride? Under such unique situation, we will modify the Bus Programme as deemed appropriate. 67. For cable damages, you mean we will be on BUS regardless whether it is our fault or not? Considering the protection measures already put in place for cables and gas pipes and there should be cable/pipes detection conducted before starting work, any damage is likely to be due to some non-conformances to requirements or work processes. The BUS program will not be activated if indeed it was found that it was wholly not contractor’s fault. 68. Do you mean stop work on site or stop issuing new work orders? It means stop the work at site. 69. When on BUS, are the stop work and other training measures applicable to only the site involved or for all sites under the same contract? How does it work? Only the affected worksite will be required to stop work to prevent further aggravation. In other words, the workers of these sites are required to attend Safety@SPPG as refresher, and project/safety people of contractor for this contract are required to attend project safety management training as refresher. 70. I have a few sites under a contract doing different work. I get onto BUS because of one violation in a particular site. Does it mean that if I do not have enough work for that site to complete the BUS program, my other sites will have to substitute for it despite of different nature? Only other sites with similar nature of work will be considered as substitutes for the BUS program. However, under such situation, we will modify the Bus Programme as deemed appropriate. 71. Is it practical to impose stop work if the road is opened and need to be closed ASAP to meet regulatory requirements? Likewise, if it is a critical urgent work like supply restoration in the case of cable damage? We will review this on case by case basis if the work has to complete on time to meet regulatory requirement. 72. How does the BUS scheme help contractors instead of punishing them? In what way is it a partnership arrangement? The approach of BUS programme is correctional first. Contractors are will not put on BUS immediately. If they commit minor non-conformance, we will work with them to fix it on the spot. When committing major non-conformance, we will activate a safety pause with the aim to fix the non-conformance and educate their workers of the safe work procedures. In other words, contractors are given opportunities to make correction on the non-conformance. Our aim is to work with them to make their work safe. Only contractors who have repeatedly commit major non-conformance or critical violation will be put on BUS. 73. Why need to suspend me if I am on more than 2 BUS in a quarter? When a contractor is on BUS more than two times, it indicates that their safety capability or/and work quality is weak and so they may not be suitable to be our contractor. The suspension provides an opportunity to improve on their safety and work capability to make them a suitable contractor to SP. 74. If you keep sending us on BUS, how do complete our work? You cannot finish work when your execution is not safe. To be able to complete on time, one must make sure that the work is executed safely. The BUS program helps contractor fix the lapse when spotted and before next incident occurs.