Digital RAMS and subcontractor sign-off
Getting a method statement signed is easy. Proving, eighteen months later, that a particular operative accepted a particular version before they picked up a tool is the part that goes wrong.
Every principal contractor has the same folder: risk assessments and method statements going out to subcontractors, coming back signed, getting filed. On most sites that round trip runs on paper and a phone camera. It works, right up until somebody asks a question about it.
The question is rarely “did you have RAMS?” You did. It is “can you show this person had them, in this version, before they started?” That is a different problem, and a photograph of a signature does not answer it.
Why the paper round trip fails under scrutiny
A signed sheet photographed on site carries almost no verifiable information. It shows a mark on a page. It does not show when the mark was made, whether the sheet photographed is the version that was issued, or whether anything was changed after the fact. All of that is recoverable on a good day with a well-kept folder. None of it is provable.
The specific ways it comes apart:
- Version drift. A method statement gets revised on Tuesday. Three operatives signed Monday’s. The folder holds one PDF and six signatures, and nothing records which sheet each person actually read.
- Backdating, or the appearance of it. A sheet signed on Thursday and dated Monday looks identical to one genuinely signed on Monday. So does an honest one. That ambiguity works against you, not for you.
- The photograph is not the document. A WhatsApp image is a re-encoded, cropped, metadata-stripped copy of a piece of paper. It is evidence that a photograph exists.
- The folder is one wet cab away from gone. Site paperwork lives in a van, a portakabin, or somebody’s phone gallery between two thousand other photos.
What sending RAMS through Pixasign changes
The workflow is the same shape. You send the RAMS, the subcontractor opens it on whatever phone they have, reads it, signs, and it comes back. Nobody downloads an app and nobody creates an account — they tap a link in an email.
What is different is what you are left holding afterwards.
Every signed document gets a cryptographic seal — a PAdES B-T signature, the standard set out in ETSI EN 319 142 — and an RFC 3161 timestamp issued by DigiCert. That second part matters more than it sounds. A timestamp is only worth anything if somebody other than you attests the time; a company that timestamps its own documents is marking its own homework. DigiCert is an independent, publicly trusted authority, and its attestation of when that signature existed is checkable by anyone.
Alongside the sealed PDF you get an evidence certificate: who signed, the address it went to, their IP and approximate location, the device, the full timeline down to the second, and SHA-256 fingerprints of the document before and after sealing. The events are hash-chained, so each one locks in the one before it. Alter a character of the history and every seal after it breaks.
| The question | Signed sheet, photographed | Sealed through Pixasign |
|---|---|---|
| Which version did they sign? | Whichever was in the folder, probably | A SHA-256 fingerprint of the exact file |
| When did they sign it? | The date they wrote | A timestamp issued by DigiCert, not by you |
| Has it changed since? | No way to tell | The seal breaks if a single byte moves |
| Can someone else confirm it? | They have to trust your folder | Anyone can check it, with or without us |
| Where is it in two years? | A van, a portakabin, a phone gallery | Downloaded, and still valid on its own |
Checkable without us, and that is deliberate
A sealed PDF is a standard signed PDF. It opens in ordinary PDF software and the signature is inspectable there. We also run a free public checker — drop a file in, and it tells you whether anything has changed since it was sealed. No account, no login, and it works for anyone: a client, an insurer, a solicitor, someone who has never heard of us.
This is the point most worth understanding. Evidence that only works while you keep paying a supplier is not evidence you control. Download the signed PDFs and their certificates whenever you like, and they stand up on their own.
Pricing, for a business where everybody sends paperwork
Most e-signature tools charge per user. On a site that is the wrong shape entirely: the contracts manager sends RAMS, so does the site manager, so does whoever is covering on Friday. Per-seat pricing means either paying for everyone or sharing a login, and sharing a login destroys the audit trail you bought the thing for.
Pixasign is a flat monthly price with unlimited users. £29 a month for 50 documents, £59 for 200, £99 for 500 — VAT included, so the number you see is the number you pay. Add the whole team. Your subcontractors never pay anything and never need an account.
Send one and see
Seven days free, no card. Send a real RAMS to a real subcontractor, sign it on a phone, and look at the evidence certificate that comes back.
Start free trial UK-built and UK-run. Nothing hosted in the United States.Questions
Is an electronically signed RAMS acceptable?
Electronic signatures are valid and enforceable for the vast majority of business documents under UK law, and RAMS acceptance is an ordinary business record rather than one of the narrow categories with special formality requirements. What matters in practice is whether you can evidence who accepted what and when — which is exactly the part a sealed document does better than paper. If a specific client contract or scheme requires a particular form of sign-off, follow that; check it with whoever handles your compliance rather than taking a supplier’s word for it, ours included.
What if the subcontractor has no signal on site?
Send it the night before. The link stays live for fourteen days, so it can be read and signed in the yard, at home, or anywhere with a bar of signal — which is usually easier than getting a printed sheet back anyway.
Can I send the same RAMS to several operatives?
Yes. Add every signer to the same document, each with their own signature field, and each gets their own link. The certificate records each person separately: when they opened it, when they signed, and from where.
What happens to my documents if I stop paying?
Nothing is deleted. Your account becomes read-only — you can still view and download everything already signed — and sending pauses until you pick a plan again. The sealed PDFs and certificates you have downloaded stay valid regardless, because they do not depend on us.