Six standards, one assessment

The standards you can be assessed against

Pick the ones you hold, or the ones you are going for. Every National Highways Sector Scheme applies ISO 9001, so a sector scheme assessment includes the ISO 9001 core and scores you against both. You never pay for ISO 9001 twice, and where two standards ask the same question you answer it once.

Available now

The figures are what is in the question bank today, not a target. This is a day's work for most firms, and it is meant to be: an assessment you can finish in twenty minutes would not tell you anything an assessor does not already know.

The six standards available now, with question counts and the time each takes
Standard Who it is for Questions At the desk On site
ISO 9001
ISO 9001:2015 with Amendment 1:2024
Any organisation certified to ISO 9001, or preparing for its first certification visit. 115 About three hours No site visit
NHSS 12D
Issue 5, July 2025
Putting temporary traffic management in, looking after it and taking it out again, on ordinary roads and through towns. 212 About four hours About an hour and a half
NHSS 12A/B
Issue 4, April 2024
Traffic management that stays where it is put, on motorways and fast dual carriageways, and on widening work done while the road is open. 200 About five hours About three quarters of an hour
NHSS 12C
Issue 4, September 2024
Putting in and taking out mobile lane closures on motorways and dual carriageways. 176 About five hours About half an hour
NHSS 16
Issue 3, December 2021
Laying asphalt mixtures by machine or by hand on highway works. 147 About four and a half hours About half an hour
NHSS 23
Issue 1, March 2017
Small scale pavement repairs, including potholes, ironwork and surface treatments. 139 About four hours About twenty minutes

Question counts include the site observations. The desk time is the sum of the estimated minutes on every section of that bank, rounded. A firm whose profile rules sections out answers fewer.

Holding more than one

The shared questions are asked once

Every scheme here is built on one ISO 9001 core. A question about controlling your documents, or about competence records, or about internal audit, is the same question whichever scheme is asking it, so you answer it once and it counts for all of them.

A firm holding 12D and 16 answers 283 questions rather than the 359 the two banks hold between them. The 76 it does not answer twice are the ones the two schemes share.

You are scored separately for each

One assessment, one set of answers, but a score and a band for every standard you picked. Ready for ISO 9001 and gaps to close for 12D is a true and useful thing to be told. A single blended figure would not be.

The report says which standards each question counts toward, so you can see why it is being asked and which certificate it bears on.

Being written

Announced because they are being built, not to hold a place. Nothing here has a price or a buy button until its question bank is published and has passed the same checks as the six above.

BS 99001

BS 99001:2022

Quality management in the built environment. It is a sector application of ISO 9001, so it sits on the core that is already published and is the next one to arrive.

ISO 45001

ISO 45001:2018

Occupational health and safety management. It shares its structure with ISO 9001, so a firm holding both answers the shared questions once, the same way the sector schemes work.

ISO 14001

ISO 14001:2026

Environmental management. Same structure again. A firm running all three as one integrated management system is assessed as one, not three times over.

Another sector scheme

Twenty five are certifiable

Every one of them applies ISO 9001, so most are a pack over a core that already exists rather than a product from nothing. Tell us which you hold and we will say honestly how long it would take.

Ask about a scheme

See it before you decide

The sample report is a full report for a fictional firm, so you can judge the output rather than the promise. The free check is fifteen questions and takes five minutes.

See the sample report Prices