Who needs National Highways Sector Schemes?

The National Highways Sector Schemes (NHSS), which have additional standards for highways activities, are based on ISO 9001. They were created in collaboration with all facets of the roadways sector and the United Kingdom Accredited Service and were intended to serve as a benchmark for the sector and to reassure clients that standards were being upheld consistently.

Separate technical advisory groups, made up of representatives from the entire industry, certification and training organisations, clients, contractors, suppliers, and trade associations, oversee the various Schemes.

The Sector Scheme Documents are produced by UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service) on behalf of the technical advisory committees.

Compliant delivers a National Highways Sector Schemes consultancy service to businesses operating across the highways sector. We can support with all National Highways Sector Schemes and have a proven track record throughout the industry.

Just one of our happy National Highways Sector Schemes customers is On The Go Traffic Management who successfully retained their ISO 9001 & National Highway Sector Schemes certification with Compliant earlier this year. Discover more about their journey here.

Our professional partnerships with certifying bodies means we can pass cost savings directly onto clients and liaise with those bodies on your behalf. But who needs National Highways Sector Schemes?

What is the National Highways Sector Scheme?

More than 20 distinct schemes make up the National Highways Sector Schemes. These involve a variety of tasks, including fencing, roadside planting, traffic control, and road resurfacing and markings. As explained above a group of technical advisors, which may include business representatives, local government officials, trade associations, and certification agencies, develops and oversees each of these programmes.

In order to guarantee that every company affiliated with the National Highways Sector Schemes is adequately trained and has a competent workforce, sector schemes are established within an ISO 9001 framework in collaboration with important organisations in the roads industry. Compliant can support certification for an extensive range of National Highways sector schemes including:

Highway Sector Scheme No 2A – Design and/or Supply, Installation and Repair of Fences Highway Sector Scheme No 2A
Highway Sector Scheme No 2B – Supply, Installation and Repair of Vehicle Restraint Systems
Highway Sector Scheme No 2C – Design, Supply, Installation and Repair of Environmental Barriers (Structural)
Highway Sector Scheme No 5A – Manufacture of Parapets for Road Restraint Systems
Highway Sector Scheme No 5B – Installation of Parapets for Road Restraint Systems
Highway Sector Scheme No 6 – Manufacture and Verification of Minor Structures
Highway Sector Scheme No 7 – Application of Road Marking Materials and Road Studs to Road Surfaces
Highway Sector Scheme No 8 – The Overseeing and / or Installation and / or Maintenance of Highway Electrical equipment and supporting works
NHSS2B and NHSS5B – Permanent Vehicle Restraint Systems Incorporating
Highway Sector Scheme No 12A & 12B – Static Temporary Traffic Management on Motorways and High Speed Dual Carriageways Including On Line Widening Schemes
Highway Sector Scheme No 12C – Mobile Lane Closure Traffic Management on Motorways and Other Dual Carriageways
Highway Sector Scheme No 12D – Installing, Maintaining and Removing Temporary Traffic Management on Rural and Urban Roads
Highway Sector Scheme No 13 – The supply and application of surface treatments to road surfaces
Highway Sector Scheme No 16 – Laying of Asphalt Mixes
Highway Sector Scheme No 18 – The Natural Environment and Landscape including Ecology
Highway Sector Scheme No 19A – Corrosion protection of ferrous materials by industrial coatings
Highway Sector Scheme No 20 – The execution of steelwork in transportation infrastructure assets
Highway Sector Scheme No 22 – The Management, Operation, Installation and Maintenance of Road Tunnels
Highway Sector Scheme No 23 – Small Scale Pavement Repairs
Highway Sector Scheme No 30 – Installation, Maintenance and Repair of Modular Paving

Exploring National Highway Sector Schemes

Who needs National Highways Sector Schemes?

You must be certified for all applicable schemes for the work you are contracted to do if your organisation provides services to National Highways under the Specification for Highways Works (SHW). This includes the supply of products but excludes the manufacture of products subject to legal conformity assessment requirements.

If the SHW is included in the contract documentation, unless the contract specifies otherwise, any entity performing work that is covered by a National Highways Sector Scheme must be registered with that National Highways Sector Scheme.

A National Highways Sector Scheme where work is subcontracted does not require registration. Any used subcontractor must be registered with the appropriate National Highways Sector Scheme. An National Highways Sector Schemes -certified contractor is not permitted by the SHW to provide a carrying awning for a non- National Highways Sector Scheme registered provider.

If a National Highways Sector Scheme contains any of the following, your organisation will find it useful:

On the motorway or trunk road network, principal contractors and subcontractors;
Principal contractors, as well as those doing landscape work on or adjacent to highways;
Producers, installers, and service providers of products covered under a programme;
Consultants and designers for highways.

Compliant and National Highways Sector Schemes?

Compliant work closely and collaboratively with certifying bodies and industry specialists to support the National Highways Sector Schemes framework.

We successfully deliver National Highways Sector Schemes, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 22301, ISO 27001 and ISO 45001 and can help businesses to access funding for their certifications. We offer flexible payment plans and can pass cost savings from certifications bodies through successful partnerships directly onto our customers. Compliant will go the extra step in an initial teams meeting to fully understand your business, its requirements, the structure of the management system required, and the organisational context.

Working with your team, Compliant can ensure your business is successful in gaining National Highways Sector Schemes in just 21 days.

However, we recommend an initial 6-week period to enable time for discussions, implementation and making the National Highways Sector Schemes management system bespoke to the individual company. Once you decide whether you would like to progress we will liaise with the certification body of your choice and book in all of your audits in advance.

An added benefit of partnering with Compliant is that all our ISO certifications are UKAS accredited.

If you would like to find out more about our National Highways Sector Schemes costs complete our FREE quotation calculator here!

What are the benefits of National Highways Sector Schemes?

There are many benefits of National Highways Sector Schemes. We explore several of these in a previous article of ours ‘Exploring National Highway Sector Schemes’. Some of them include:

Reduced expenses
Possibility of additional cost reduction for your clients while maintaining quality
Constant development for your business
Guarantee that your procedures are organised and maintained with a team that is competent and well-trained
Assurance for your stakeholders.

Having National Highway Sector Schemes also opens the door for you to accept contracts for the national road network.

These are just a few of the advantages to becoming National Highway Sector Schemes certified.

National Highway Sector Schemes are intended to:

Make quality a key area of concern
Provide an industry standard – benchmark that all highway service providers can work towards
Make sure that every step is scheduled
Establish a foundation for ongoing progress
Reduce client and supplier costs
Establish and retain a competent and well-trained workforce
Include all industry stakeholders in the ownership of the plan under a partnership framework

The certification bodies that we partner with use auditors who have technical expertise and experience in a range industries.

Getting started

It is possible to add National Highway Sector Schemes as an extension of an existing ISO certification if it was obtained through a registered national accrediting authority, an authorised UKAS certification body, or both.

This is where we come in.

We support a range of clients in gaining their ISO certification and National Highway Sector Schemes through the development of professional management systems and support on audit days.

We always have time for your questions. If we have missed anything above and you would like more information, please get in touch today.