Frequently asked questions

There are eleven at present: ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, BS 99001 and National Highways Sector Schemes 12D, 12A/B, 12C, 16, 23, 7 and 8. The standards page lists every one with its question count and how long it takes. If you hold a sector scheme that isn't listed, let us know which one and we'll tell you how long it would take to add.

ISO 9001:2015 with Amendment 1:2024 for the core. ISO 14001:2026, or the 2015 edition if your certificate is to that one. ISO 45001:2018 with Amendment 1:2024. BS 99001:2022, with ISO 9001:2015. 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; NHSS 23 Issue 1, March 2017; NHSS 7 Issue 7, February 2023; and NHSS 8 Issue 2, October 2022. Every question shows the clause or appendix it relates to, for reference only. When a new issue comes out, we review that bank and publish a new version. 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 at no extra cost and scores you against both. You only pick ISO 9001 on its own if you don't hold a sector scheme. The scheme documents are written to the 2015 edition. Certification bodies assess against that edition until each scheme's advisory committee revises its document. ISO 9001:2026 was published on 16 September 2026. In the app you can show either edition's clause numbers, and it marks the points the 2026 edition strengthens. Those markers are provisional until we've checked the published text.

No. If you're going for a standard for the first time, you get the same questions as a firm preparing for its surveillance visit. An assessor looks for the same things either way. Your profile records whether you're applying or already certified, and the questions follow it: if you haven't applied yet, you're asked about the scope you'll put to a certification body instead of your last report. The assessment costs less than consultancy days, so you can run it first to see how far you are from ready before you pay for consultancy or book an assessment.

Questions the standards share are asked once, and your answer counts for each standard. Every sector scheme sits on the same ISO 9001 core, so a question about document control, internal audit findings or complaints is the same whichever scheme asks it. BS 99001 is built on the same core, with its own versions of many of its questions, and ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 have questions of their own. A firm holding 12D and 16 answers 283 questions rather than the 359 in the two banks. There's more detail under Holding more than one on the standards page.

One for each. Every standard you picked gets its own score and band, so you might be ready for ISO 9001 and still have gaps to close for 12D. Each question says which standards it counts toward, so you can see why it's being asked and which certificate it affects.

You start with the key questions in every section, which takes about an hour to an hour and a half at the desk for one standard. Wherever you answer Partly, No or Don't know, that section opens and asks the rest of its questions, so the time depends on your answers. Answering every question takes about two and a half to five hours, and you can choose to from the start. Take as many sittings as you like. A sector scheme adds a site walk of about twenty minutes to about an hour and a half. ISO 9001 on its own has no site visit. The standards page gives the figure for each one. If you hold more than one standard, you only answer the shared questions once. Your answers save to your account as you go.

You can leave any question for later. Once you've set your profile, questions that don't apply to your work never appear. For the few that might not apply, you can pick a not-applicable reason from a list. The reason is printed in the report for the assessor to see.

No. The result is based on what you say about your evidence, scored against the published scheme document. Nobody at SchemeReady reviews your answers, and 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 says pass or fail.

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 gives you a dated record with a signature line. You can file it as part of that, if a competent person completes it. The tool records what you tell it about that person's competence but doesn't assess it. The walk isn't a safety assessment. Chapter 8, your own risk assessment and your competent person govern what happens on site.

A short readiness report (PDF) and separate documents: an action plan (Excel and PDF), an audit-day checklist and evidence list (PDF, with the evidence list in Excel too), a site visit record for each walk (PDF), a record of every answer (PDF), a management review agenda (PDF) and, for 12D, a workbook of twelve register templates (Excel). They cover every standard you picked, with a score and a band for each. Every assessment also comes with Check my answers and two practice audits. The what you get page shows each one.

Yes. Choose a PNG, JPG or SVG in the app, and it's 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 we confirm it before you commit to anything. Card payment isn't switched on yet, so we set accounts up by hand. Tell us which standards you hold and we'll send a price soon. The pricing page shows the current licence prices.

By invoice from Denver House Consultancy Ltd. Tell us which standards you hold and we'll send a price and an invoice soon. Once it's paid, we either set your account up and email you a link to choose your password, or email you a code to enter in the app. After that you sign in with your email address and password in a web browser.

Each organisation completes its assessment once per standard, in as many sittings as you like. For six months after you complete it, you can update the action plan. After that you can still read and export everything. We email the account owner once, thirty days before the six months end. If you want to run the assessment again, ask us and we'll add another to your account.

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

Choose "Forgotten your 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.

Your consultant needs the assessment body licence, which covers as many client organisations as they work with. A Readiness Assessment licence is for one organisation.

Yes. Email us your invoice number within fourteen days of paying and we'll refund you. You don't need to give a reason. What you were refunded for stops when the refund is made: a licence becomes read-only for that standard. You can still read and export what you've answered, but you can't add anything new. The refunds page has the detail.

We did, working from each ISO and BS standard 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 management system audits. Lantra, National Highways and the certification bodies had no part in writing or checking the content, and none of them is connected with SchemeReady. 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 the footer of every page says so. We take no referral fees and don't recommend any certification body. Your answers are held in your own account and on your devices. SchemeReady administrators can read them when you ask us for help, to look into a fault or a security problem, or when the law requires it. Every read is recorded. The privacy notice sets out what we hold and who can see it.

Check my answers, which reads every answer and note and shows where an assessor is likely to ask for more, and two practice audits, each an assessor's questions on your weakest areas with feedback on your answers. Check my documents, which reads up to 12 of your documents against your assessment's questions, comes with Compliance Tools, 3 runs a year. An assessment body licence has up to 20 runs with each licence.

The AI tools you use all year: toolbox talks, RAMS checks where RAMS apply, incident investigations, answers to audit findings, internal audit reports, management review minutes, and documents written or improved with your logo on them. Each one gives you a draft to check before you use it. It's £149 a year for one organisation and all its standards, or £299 with the Readiness Assessment for one standard. The Compliance Tools page shows what each tool does.

They go from your browser to a small server function we run on Cloudflare, and from there to the AI provider for the length of one request. We don't store your documents. They're deleted from the provider at the end of the request, and expire there an hour after upload in any case. Your account keeps the findings for twelve months. It keeps a record of the run, with the document names, for as long as the account exists. The provider's own terms govern what it keeps for abuse monitoring. Leave out dates of birth, National Insurance numbers and anything else the check doesn't need. The privacy notice sets this out in full.

No. It reports what your answers and the documents you upload show, and where they seem to fall short of what a question asks for. It can't see your premises, your people or your sites, and it can make mistakes.

Word and PDF templates for the records a scheme expects, each showing the issue and date it was written against. The only pack so far is for 12D. Packs for the other standards aren't written yet. You can buy the whole pack for £149 or a single template for £29, with or without a licence. The registers workbook is a separate Excel file. It comes with every licence that includes 12D.

We offer an expert hour. It's one hour on a video call with a consultant to go through your report. Add it to an assessment for £120, or book it on its own at £150. The expert hour is consultancy and is separate from the software. It isn't a certification body service.