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Gain TrustMark Licence Plus with Simply

Simply Certification, providers of certification across the Lifecycle of the Built Environment are excited to announce that we now offer TrustMark Licence Plus.

Current schemes such as ECO4, LADs, HUG and SHDF require PAS 2030/35 certification and TrustMark registration; Licence Plus is designed for future schemes and the able to pay market which may not need the PAS 2035 element that PAS 2030 certification requires.

To operate within the Licence Plus scheme, Licence Plus contractors will need to be a TrustMark registered business and undergo assessments to ensure high quality installations that protect the customer.

Alex Gates, Simply Certification’s Managing Director explains;

“We’re excited to be one of the first certification bodies to offer this, as one of our key priorities is to help extend the supply chain to help meet the UK’s net-zero targets.”

“We’ve been working closely with a number of primary contractors and TrustMark on various initiatives to help drive up the numbers within the UK supply chain and are already starting to see an increase of new contractors into this sector, which is an amazing achievement.”

“Improving Energy Efficiency through quality retrofitting”

Simon Ayers, CEO, TrustMark explains,

“We are facing one of the biggest challenges around reducing energy consumption and making homes in the UK warmer, more comfortable and healthier to live in at a time when we have a cost of living crisis, coupled with a shortage of skilled trades. Improving energy efficiency through quality retrofitting is key to helping reduce this burden but it must be done by competent tradespeople working to measurable standards to ensure the result fits the need.

The demand for businesses has never been higher and will only continue to increase. This demand, coupled with the current skills shortage, means we have to look for broader solutions. We believe that the Licence Plus Scheme can be part of that solution, so it’s great to have Simply Certification on board, offering Licence Plus registration to their businesses.”

Certification across the Built Environment Lifecycle

Simply Certification who were launched in August 2020 are quickly becoming the certification body of choice for organisations who operate across the lifecycle of the built environment which includes 4 key stages:

  1. Pre Construction and Design
  2. Construction
  3. Operations, Facilities Management and Retrofit
  4. End of Use

“We ensure a great assessment experience that adds real value”

Alex concludes;

“Our offering is extremely attractive to organisations who operate within any one of the stages of the Built Environment Lifecycle.

“Particularly those who are aligned with net-zero strategies. We have a strong focus on supporting organisations in their quality, environment and health and safety certifications. We have aligned our service to meet these needs which includes delivering assessments and certification for ISO and SSIP as well as TrustMark, PAS 2030, PAS 2038, Licence Plus and soon MCS.

Our unique offering is that we can coordinate assessment plans that keep disruption to a minimum and ensure great value by having a collaborative approach.

We ensure a great assessment experience that adds real value and aids ongoing business improvement with plans that are integrated where possible – a great offering for a sector that requires to demonstrate such high degrees of compliance and certification”

For more information about TrustMark and Licence Plus, contact our team today:
0191 3233960
hello@simplycertification.co.uk

Simply Changing and Evolving

We’re excited to announce that following a successful 2022, we have made some changes to our structure to support the business in its next phase of growth.

Compliance and Operations Manager

Lyndsey Gates will now take overall responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the Head Office as Compliance and Operations Manager. This last 12 months, Lyndsey has done an outstanding job in supporting the business from a compliance aspect working closely with TrustMark and UKAS. She has naturally started to oversee the running of the customer service aspect towards the end of the 2022. This change in role now formalises Lyndsey’s position, enabling her to start to plan the growth of the team for 2023 to support the new products and services that will be released over the next few months.

PAS 2030 and MCS Scheme Manager

Richard Wiffen one of our Technical Assessors has now moved up to be our PAS 2030 and MCS Scheme Manager and will be responsible for the team of assessors that fall under these standards. Richard will be responsible for managing both contracted and direct employed field based assessors, supporting the employee onboarding process and working closely with Lyndsey to fulfil all compliance requirements around the schemes. Richard has proven to be a wonderful asset to Simply; along with his exceptional assessment and people skills this new role will make even better use of his knowledge and capabilities.

Managing Director

Alexandra Gates has taken over as Managing Director from 3 January 2023, allowing Austin Gibbons to take on strategic projects around compliance, certification and technologies continuing to build our portfolio of services whilst formally delivering the Finance Director role for the business. Alex will continue to lead the growth of the business through strategic partnerships and work closely with Austin to execute the new initiatives.

What an eventful start to 2023 for Team Simply!

Saviour Energy PAS 2030 Case Study

PAS 2030 Case Study

The Need

Saviour Energy Solutions launched in 2014 and have been delivering the retrofit of energy efficiency measures under various funding schemes to help drive down fuel poverty.

Having gained PAS 2030:2017 around 5 years ago, Saviour continued on with their existing certification body.

As the business began to grow, they started to attract opportunities from a number of local authorities which required evidence of compliance to ISO 9001.

The Pain

After searching for an alternative certification body, they found Simply Certification who offered both PAS 2030 and ISO 9001.

Khawar Aziz , Saviour’s Director states;

“We were finding the lack of communication we were receiving from our provider at the time increasingly frustrating.

From the moment we got in touch with Simply we realised that this was a certification body that was much more in line with what we needed.

Not only did they offer management system certification they also offered PAS 2030.”

Khawar goes onto say;

“We were feeling let down with our other provider due to lack of responsiveness and compliance is vital to us so felt that we would also enlist the services of Simply for PAS 2030.”

The Outcome

“We have gained certification with Simply for PAS 2030 and the process was such a different experience to what we have had previously.

It was a nice experience working with Simply. Especially, Lyndsey whom I called and interacted during this whole process. She was always ready to help.

Communication is so important when providing a service such as certification and I felt that Simply excelled at this.

The assessments were invaluable to us by supporting with our continuous improvement and compliance.

We’re really looking forward to a continued relationship with Simply.”

Simply’s growth and technical capability increases further

growth through certification

It’s exciting times for Simply Certification with two experienced Retrofit Coordinators and insulation experts joining the team very soon; increasing coverage for PAS 2030 measures across the UK.

Alex Gates, Simply’s Strategy and Marketing Director explains;

“As a certification body we are wanting to create real value and it’s vital that our compliance, customer service and assessors are the best in class so that our customers get real value for money.

Our recent recruitment drive has enabled us to benefit from onboarding technical inspectors for gas, electric and now insulation across the UK. We have a dedicated team who carry out head office assessments that meet UKAS requirements and ensure that our clients have a seamless assessment experience for their technical inspections.”

Alex continues;

“Our customer base since January has increased by 80% which is a testament to the wonderful team we have in place. Our key focus is to deliver a responsive, supportive and value lead service and we believe that is exactly what we are achieving.

Our roadmap of growth for the rest of this year includes further scope extensions, the launch of our world-wide assessor program, growing management system certification and bringing on more skilled and talented assessors to service our growing customer base.

It’s certainly a very exciting time for us all and we’re really looking forward to working with more organisations not only across the UK but globally so that they can demonstrate compliance in their chosen discipline.”

TrustMark welcomes latest Scheme Provider, Simply Certification

TrustMark Scheme Provider

Press Release from TrustMark 16 February 2022

The latest UK certification organisation to receive UKAS accreditation has joined TrustMark as a new Scheme Provider.

Simply Certification provides UKAS certification for a variety of organisations who operate within the Construction supply chain including the Eco and Decarbonisation sector for new and existing buildings.

Certifications include PAS 2030 (Eco efficient installer), ISO 9001 (Quality Management), ISO 14001 (Environmental Management), ISO 45001 (Health and Safety) and ISO 19650 (Building Information Modelling).

Simply Certification was launched in August 2020 by its founder members, all of whom come from the certification industry. Their aim is to simplify the certification process where possible and ensure that the assessment experience is not unnecessarily overcomplicated.

Alongside assessing certifications for domestic retrofit installations, they also recently launched a service around PAS 2038 (Assessment and Design of the Retrofit of Energy Efficiency Measures for Commercial Building Stock) and are working with some large national contractors to help them and their supply chain become compliant.

Now that Simply Certification is a TrustMark Scheme Provider, their customers will be able to gain both certifications for PAS 2030 and become a TrustMark Registered Business as part of the services offered.

Simon Ayers, CEO TrustMark said,

“Simply Certification is a welcome addition to TrustMark. Their focus on quality and compliance aligns with our own and further strengthens the drive for improvement. The team’s emphasis on working collaboratively with their businesses and supporting them through a robust but straightforward approach to achieving certification helps to achieve continual improvement as well as the end goal. As retrofitting our homes increases in importance, services offered by organisations like Simply Certification to the construction industry are integral in achieving the quality and standards required in this vital area. We look forward to working with them.”

Austin Gibbons, Managing Director at Simply Certification added,

“Having worked within compliance for a number of years supporting organisation to gain certification, I have first-hand experience of the frustrations of trying to gain and maintain certification. We’re very excited to be able to provide a certification service that installers and contractors feel is of great value. It’s so important that our customers feel like customers and have a positive experience with us.

“We are seeing the growing need for PAS 2030 certification and TrustMark Registration within the construction sector as it is becoming recognised that meeting these requirements demonstrates high quality for retrofit installation. We’re excited to become a TrustMark Scheme Provider and to be able to offer another level of quality to our customers.”

UKAS Accreditation, Simply the best achievement of the year

PAS 2030 UKAS

In August 2020 Simply Certification was launched. Our mission? To be the certification body of choice due to our exceptional customer service and value lead approach.

After a rigorous and robust assessment process Simply Certification, were granted accreditation by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) just before Christmas 2021.

Ecstatic to become a UKAS accredited Certification Body

Managing Director Austin Gibbons explains;

“We are ecstatic to become a UKAS accredited Certification Body. The team have worked extremely hard and have demonstrated such passion and commitment throughout the process.

We are now able to offer our clients PAS 2030 accredited certification across a range of measures.

Our key mission is to grow within the construction, built environment and decarbonisation sectors which drives our product offering and focus on accreditation.”

Fresh bright and energetic

Alex Gates, Simply’s Co Founder and Director of Strategy and Marketing goes on to say;

“We were very fortunate to be able to start off with a blank canvas in terms the type of organisation we wanted to create.

We all came from the world of compliance and have a great understanding of the perception and frustrations organisations had when dealing with certification bodies, so it was our chance to launch a fresh certification service that would break this mould.

The fresh, bright, and energetic look and feel of Simply reflects the organisation’s inner core values and what our clients would expect when dealing with us.

The feedback we have received to date is fantastic. Our clients are experiencing great communication, an enjoyable assessment experience and feeling they are gaining great value – which is exactly what we set out to do.”

A range of certifiable standards

“We fully understand the frustrations that organisations have trying to maintain certification for a range of requirements.

I’m really excited as we offer a great range of certifiable standards such as ISO 9001 (Quality) and ISO 14001 (Environmental) alongside PAS 2030.

This is a great package for our customers to demonstrate compliance and best practice which opens up great opportunities under a range of funding schemes and contracts.”

The future

The business is going from strength to strength with new customers on-boarding every day. Austin concludes;

“As part of us establishing ourselves within the built environment sector we’ve been working with worldwide partners delivering ISO 19650 certification and launching our package of training, gap analysis and certification for PAS 2038 .

This is an extremely exciting time for Team Simply, we’ve achieved so much in the last 18 months and we’re really looking forward to an exceptionally busy 2022.”

Join our team!

Join an energetic, collaborative and high growth certification body

Due to our growth we are needing more assessors to join our fantastic team.

Who we are

Quite “simply” we provide certification across a range of standards:

 

Our five core values are:

  • Collaborative
  • Innovative
  • Responsiveness
  • Supportive
  • Value lead

We believe that having all five of these core values is what sets us apart from other certification bodies.

Our customer orientated approach means that our customers get a refreshing approach to their certification services. Our assessments are robust, impartial and thorough following UKAS standards.

Who we are looking for

We are looking to grow our team significantly as our customer base is growing across the UK and Globally:

PAS 2030/35 Technical Assessors

We are looking for a number of assessors across the UK to join our team to provide head office and technical assessments for Insulation, Gas and Electrical installations under PAS 2030/35

We would be looking for the following competencies:

  • Evidence of training within PAS 2030 such as an Awareness Course
  • GDA or DEA or Equivalent Course (Retrofit Assessor)
  • Lead auditor training
  • Relevant qualifications for measures required
    • Gas – Gas Safe Card
    • Electrical – 18th Edition and ECS Card
    • Insulation – NVQ Level 2 in Insulation and Building Treatments
    • Glazing – NVQ in Glazing and FENSA  Registration
  • Minimum of two years’ experience within Eco Industry
  • Minimum of two years’ experience inspecting, assessing or technical monitoring

Apply using our online application.

ISO 9001/14001/45001 Assessors

We are looking for a number of assessors across the UK to join our Management System team. We are looking for cross competent auditors to help our customers streamline audit programs across the three standards.

Ideally we are looking for the following

  • Relevant subject degree
  • IRCA ISO Lead Auditor
  • Prince, APM, Six Sigma
  • Have a varied breadth of industry sector experience, ideally across the relevant EA industries
  • Minimum of two years’ experience conducting certification audits
  • Two additional years’ work experience in the operation or assessment of relevant Management Systems

Apply using our online application

ISO 19650 Assessors

We are looking for a number of assessors that can carry out remote audits for ISO 19650. We are looking for existing BIM consultants/trainers with in-depth knowledge to become an assessor against the ISO standard.

  • Relevant subject degree
  • IRCA ISO Lead Auditor
  • Have a varied breadth of industry sector experience for BIM
  • Minimum of two years’ experience conducting audits
  • Two additional years’ work experience in the operation or assessment of relevant Management Systems

Apply by sending your CV to hello@simplycertification.co.uk

 

Simply’s first year

Celebrating our first year!

Wow. What a year it has been. I mean, who would set up a brand new certification body and want to go through the rigorous process of gaining UKAS accreditation during a worldwide pandemic?

Well … us of course!

Our mission is to keep things simple and we suppose we couldn’t have picked a more difficult time to bring to life our vision of a certification body that is customer orientated, straightforward and supportive.

These last twelve months have flown by:

  • We’ve grown our team
  • Moved premises
  • Gone through the process of applying to become UKAS accredited and a TrustMark scheme provider
  • Welcomed lots of new customers on board
  • Grown great partnerships with fantastic people and organisations who have been so supportive throughout our journey

 

The certification body that breaks the mould

When we started this journey 12 months ago we thought through what would make us different to the existing CBs; what makes our story unique?

We knew the CB industry had a bit of a reputation of having a certain type of culture. Providing accredited certification means auditing has to be robust, impartial and thorough. But does this mean certification bodies should be the tail that is wagging the dog? That auditors are unfriendly and going out of their way to find issues? That processes should tie clients in knots?

Absolutely not!

Positive, supportive and straightforward

Simply was born with a positive, supportive and straightforward approach that adds value for our clients. We have developed our processes, systems and teams to make sure that not only are we meeting the high standards set out by UKAS, but we do it in a way that is customer orientated and streamlined – ensuring our customers are delighted with their service and find the experience really valuable in helping their businesses to continue to improve.

Thank you to all of our customers and supporters

Becoming an accredited certification body is certainly not easy. This first year has been spent setting up and refining our processes and undergoing intense audits ourselves. We couldn’t have achieved what we have if it wasn’t for our wonderful customers and partners who have joined us on our journey.

We wanted to say a huge thank you to you all!

What’s in store over the next 12 months?

More UKAS applications, more customers who are joining us, growing our assessment team, growing our head office team, launching a new platform and much more.

We’re so proud of what we have achieved to date and look forward to driving our vision forward and our customers actually enjoying the certification process instead of dreading it!

We’re celebrating and wanted to share what is being said about us ….

“Simply Certification are certainly making waves in the industry since they launched last year. As the leading provider in the energy efficiency market we have grown close links with Simply and their PAS 2030 team; we’re extremely impressed with what we have directly experienced and also heard about them from other organisations.

Their enthusiasm is infectious and their vision to break the mould of the traditional certification body is most definitely a success. It’s great to see the business having grown so quickly, particularly during a pandemic. This is testament to how energetic, customer focused and knowledgeable their people are. Myself and the team at Elmhurst are really looking forward to continuing our fantastic relationship with Simply.”

Elmhurst Energy

 

“Simply have delivered a number of ISO 9001 internal auditor training courses for us, and I’ve been extremely impressed with their customer support, course delivery and after sales care.

Their courses are easy to follow and understand and I’m really looking forward to utilising more of their services to support Summers-Inman’s continuous improvement and compliance programmes. I highly recommend them as a certification body.”

Summers-Inman

 

“We’ve been extremely impressed with the service that Ann and the team at Simply have provided to us to date. They have been so responsive and exceptionally customer orientated.

I’ve worked within the Eco industry for many years now and dealt with a number of certification bodies – we have a great base to compare them with. They are definitely leading the way for PAS 2030.

Eco Save Limited

 

“I could not recommend Simply Certification enough. Their team are responsive, supportive and highly knowledgeable. Their assessments run smoothly and they communicate excellently throughout the whole process so there is no confusion. They are a breath of fresh air to deal with and we are really excited to see them grow within the installation market.”

UK Energy Management

 

“I’m delighted with the level of service that Simply Certification have provided to us. Their PAS team are experts in the Eco Industry and are highly competent in their technical knowledge. Looking forward to having an ongoing relationship with them.”

Environmental Technical Services

 

“I have found the Simply team a joy to work with. Their service is spot on. From needing a question answered through to programming audits in, everyone is able to deal with everything quickly. I have found other certification bodies in the past a little frustrating to work with, however Simply have certainly nailed certification services for PAS 2030.”

VHS Energy Solutions

 

“Highly recommend Simply Certification for PAS 2030. From the second I looked at their website you can see they demystify the certification process. In an industry where compliance is key, we need certifications bodies that are supportive and friendly. Simply are definitely the best!”

GVR Energy Solutions

 

Simply Certification to become a TrustMark Scheme Provider

Now that we are taking on customers for PAS 2030, the next natural course of action is to be able to offer TrustMark Registration. This ensures that our customers are getting a smooth service to gain the relevant compliance needed for their funding and contract requirements.

We’re delighted to be well underway with the process to become a TrustMark Scheme Provider and will be launching this in the coming weeks.

What does this mean?

TrustMark is the Government Endorsed Quality Scheme covering work a consumer chooses to have carried out in or around their home.

When a consumer uses a TrustMark Registered Business, they know they are engaging an organisation that has been thoroughly vetted to meet required standards, and has made a considerable commitment to good customer service, technical competence and trading practices.

What are the benefits?

There are many benefits to becoming a TrustMark Registered business:

  • More exposure to consumers who are looking for a installer
  • Gaining a mark that instills trust and confidence in consumers
  • Qualifying for funding and contracts
  • Gaining a competitive edge
  • Helping to eradicate cowboy traders

How does becoming a TrustMark registered business work with Simply Certification?

As we are already offering PAS 2030, we are able to carry out the required assessment for TrustMark during your PAS 2030 audit – which is a cost and resource saving in itself.

To add TrustMark to your PAS 2030 package, will only cost you an additional £66 + VAT.

How do I begin the process?

You can begin the process today! Just complete our online application for PAS 2030 and TrustMark and we will provide you with a quote, what to do next and a timeline for your assessments.

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