Further improvements to reduce the bureaucracy of health and safety assessment in the construction industry have been made, a survey from Constructionline has revealed.

The number of construction companies signed up to an SSIP (Safety Schemes in Procurement) health and safety accreditation scheme has increased by more than 50% in the last year, resulting in multi-million pound savings across the industry, with £36 million saved by Constructionline suppliers alone. This comes as Acclaim, Constructionline's own health and safety scheme and SSIP member, reaches 1,200 members since its launch in May 2012.

The research of nearly 900 construction companies found that 78% have heard of SSIP, and 96% of those are currently signed up to one of the 38 schemes available. This is a significant improvement on the previous year, where only 50% of construction companies surveyed by Constructionline had heard of SSIP and only half of those were signed up to a health and safety scheme.

ASW Property Services, a Welsh maintenance and refurbishment company registered with Constructionline, was one of the first companies to sign up to Acclaim and achieve SSIP status.

Ian James, technical director at ASW, commented: "Procurement for public sector works can be a time consuming and resource intensive process for smaller companies like us. This is why Constructionline and SSIP membership via Acclaim has been a big help to us at the pre-qualification stage as a large number of public bodies now recognise these - meaning less time wasted filling repetitive questionnaires. Using Acclaim has reduced a lot of hassle from the pre-qualification process, allowing us to focus both time and resources on business development with new clients in new sectors."