Questions people ask before they buy

Six today: ISO 9001, and National Highways Sector Schemes 12D, 12A/B, 12C, 16 and 23. BS 99001, ISO 45001 and ISO 14001 are being written, with no date promised and nothing sold until each bank is published. The standards page lists every one with its question count and how long it takes. If you hold a sector scheme that is not there, tell us which and we will say honestly how long it would take.

ISO 9001:2015 with Amendment 1:2024 for the core. For the sector schemes: NHSS 12D Issue 5, July 2025, which replaced Issue 4 (December 2024); 12A/B Issue 4, April 2024; 12C Issue 4, September 2024; NHSS 16 Issue 3, December 2021; and NHSS 23 Issue 1, March 2017. Every question shows the clause or appendix it relates to, for reference only. When a new issue is published we review that bank, publish a new bank version, and the change log tells you what moved. The bank version is printed on every report. Our guide on which issue is current explains how to check your own copy.

Yes. 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 you only pick ISO 9001 on its own if you hold no sector scheme. The scheme documents are written to the 2015 edition, and certification bodies assess against that edition until each scheme's advisory committee revises its document. ISO 9001:2026 is scheduled for publication on 16 September 2026. The app lets you show either edition's clause numbers and marks the points the 2026 edition strengthens; those markers are provisional until the published text has been checked.

No. A firm going for ISO 9001 or a sector scheme for the first time gets the same questions as a firm preparing for its surveillance visit, because an assessor looks for the same things either way. Your profile records whether you are applying or already certified, and the report says what an initial visit tends to focus on. Running the assessment first is the cheapest way to find out how far you are from ready, before you pay for consultancy days or book an assessment.

The questions they share are asked once. Every scheme here sits on the same ISO 9001 core, so a question about controlling your documents, or competence records, or internal audit, is the same question whichever standard is asking it: 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. Holding more than one explains it in full.

One for each. Every standard you picked gets its own score and its own band, because "ready for ISO 9001, gaps to close for 12D" is a true and useful thing to be told and 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.

Between about three and about five hours at the desk for one standard, in as many sittings as you like, plus the site walk for a sector scheme, which runs from about twenty minutes to about an hour and a half. ISO 9001 on its own is about three hours and has no site visit. The standards page gives the figure for each one. Hold more than one standard and you do not pay the time twice for the questions they share. Your answers save in your browser as you go.

Every question can be left for later. Questions that do not apply to your work never appear once you have set your profile. For the few that might not apply, you can choose a not-applicable reason from a list, and that reason is printed in the report so the question an assessor would ask is already answered.

No. The result reflects your own answers about your own evidence, scored against the published scheme document. It is a rehearsal, not a verdict, and nobody at Denver House sees your answers. Only your certification body decides the outcome of an audit. The four bands are Ready, Nearly ready, Gaps to close and Not ready; the report never gives a verdict.

The sector schemes expect internal audits to include site visits during the year by a person technically competent in the scheme concerned. The site walk produces a dated record with a signature line that you can file as part of that, if a competent person completes it. The tool records what you state about competence; it does not make anyone competent. The walk is not a safety assessment either: Chapter 8, your own risk assessment and your competent person govern what happens on site.

The same files whichever standards you pick: a readiness report (PDF), an audit-day checklist (PDF, also inside the report), an evidence list and an action plan (Excel and PDF), a site visit record for each walk (PDF), a management review agenda (PDF) and a workbook of twelve register templates (Excel). They cover every standard you picked, with a score and a band for each. The Pro upgrade adds the AI evidence review. The what you get page shows each one.

Yes. Choose a PNG, JPG or SVG in the app; it is resized and saved with your organisation.

Yes, in the app before you generate it (owner and target date), and afterwards in Excel.

They open in Excel, Numbers, LibreOffice and Google Sheets. Formulas are plain and explained in a notes column.

The price depends on how many standards you pick, and it is confirmed before you commit to anything. Card payment is not switched on yet, so accounts are set up by hand: tell us which standards you hold and you hear back within two working days with a price. The pricing page shows the licence prices as they stand.

By invoice from Denver House Consultancy Ltd. Tell us which standards you hold and you get a price and an invoice within two working days. When it is paid we set your account up with everything on the invoice and email you a link to choose your password. There is no key to type and nothing to download.

Each organisation completes its assessment once per standard, in as many sittings as you like. Once you complete it, the results stay readable in the app for six months and the app tells you thirty days before that ends. What you export is yours to keep for as long as you like. If you want to run the assessment again, ask us and we add another to your account.

Yes, on as many as you like. Everything is saved to your account, so you sign in wherever you are working and carry on. Your account screen lists the devices that are signed in and lets you sign any of them out.

Choose "I have forgotten my password" on the sign-in screen and a link to set a new one is emailed to you. If the email address on the account has changed, write to [email protected] from the address you bought with.

A consultant should buy the Consultant licence, which covers as many client organisations as they work with. A Standard licence is for one organisation.

Yes, within fourteen days of paying, no questions asked. Email us your invoice number and we refund it. Your account becomes read-only when the refund is made: what you have answered stays readable and exportable, but nothing new can be added. The refunds page has the detail.

Prices are shown without VAT. VAT is added on the invoice from Denver House Consultancy Ltd, which is VAT registered in the United Kingdom, so a VAT-registered business can reclaim it in the usual way.

Denver House Consultancy Ltd, working from ISO 9001 itself, the published document for each sector scheme, the assessor and client guidance in its appendices, National Highways' published safety material and the general literature on ISO 9001 audits. No certification body, and neither Lantra nor National Highways, wrote or checked the content, and none of them has any connection with it. Every question carries a clause reference so you can read the source yourself.

No. SchemeReady is made by Denver House Consultancy Ltd, a consultancy that also offers an expert hour on the same subject, and it says so on every page. It takes no referral fees and recommends no certification body. Your answers are held in your own account and on your devices, and nobody at Denver House can read them: our administration tools have no screen that shows them. The privacy notice sets out exactly what we hold and who can see it.

An AI evidence review. You choose up to 12 of your own documents (PDF, image or text), pick the questions they relate to, and the review reports what the documents show against those questions. It is one run per licence, so choose the documents and the questions with care. It costs £50 ex VAT on top of a Standard licence, or £229 for both together. On an assessment body licence the reviews are metered rather than capped at two.

From your browser to a small server function run by Denver House on Cloudflare, and from there to the AI provider for the length of one request. Denver House does not store your documents: they are deleted from the provider at the end of the request and expire there an hour after upload in any case. Your account keeps a record of the run, the document names and the findings for twelve months. The provider's own terms govern what it keeps for abuse monitoring. Leave out dates of birth, National Insurance numbers and anything else the review does not need. The privacy notice sets this out in full.

No. It reports what the uploaded documents show and where they seem to fall short of what a question asks for. It cannot see your depot, your crews or your sites, and it can make mistakes. Treat it as a second pair of eyes on the paperwork, not as a check of the truth of your answers.

Word and PDF templates for the records a scheme expects, each showing the issue and date it was written against. The pack that exists today is the 12D pack; packs for the other standards are not written yet. You can buy the whole pack for £149 ex VAT or a single template for £29 ex VAT, with or without a licence. The registers workbook that comes with every licence is a separate Excel file and is generated for whichever standards you picked.

Denver House offers an expert hour: one hour on a video call with a consultant to go through your report. It comes bundled with the assessment as Standard plus expert hour, £299 ex VAT, or on its own at £150 ex VAT booked on the Denver House site. It is consultancy from Denver House, not part of the software and not a certification body service.