PUWER is the regulation people half remember. Everyone knows the saw bench needs a guard. Fewer know that the law asks for some equipment to be inspected, the inspection to be recorded, and the record to travel with the equipment when it goes to another site or firm.
The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) cover almost everything a firm uses to work: hand tools, power tools, saw benches, compressors, mixers, dumpers. Lifting equipment is covered by LOLER instead (see LOLER register), and scaffolds and excavations have their own inspection rules.
When an inspection is needed
Regulation 6 asks for an inspection by a competent person:
- where the equipment's safety depends on how it is installed: after installation, and after it is assembled at a new site or in a new location, before it is used;
- where the equipment is "exposed to conditions causing deterioration which is liable to result in dangerous situations": "at suitable intervals", and each time "exceptional circumstances which are liable to jeopardise the safety of the work equipment have occurred".
There is no fixed interval in the law. HSE says the need for inspection and how often "should be determined through risk assessment", and that intervals "can be increased if the inspection history shows negligible deterioration, or shortened where experience shows this is necessary" (HSE). The approved code of practice names construction sites as places likely to need inspections more often (L22).
Exceptional circumstances, in the code of practice, include major modifications or repairs, known or suspected serious damage, and a substantial change in use, such as coming back from a long period out of use.
A pre-use check is not an inspection
The code of practice draws the line: "inspection does not include a pre-use check that an operator makes before using the work equipment. While inspections need to be recorded, pre-use checks do not." Both matter. Only one needs a record.
HSE gives examples of the three levels (HSE):
- Before use: the condition of the cable on hand-held power tools, the brakes and lights on mobile machinery.
- Weekly: guards in place, safety devices working, tyre pressures, and the windows, mirrors and CCTV on mobile plant.
- Every few months or longer: the general condition of a ladder, a close look at a safety harness, portable appliance testing.
These are HSE's examples, not legal intervals. For 110V tools on site, HSE guidance suggests a combined inspection and test every 3 months, and says so as guidance, not law (HSG107).
The checklist
What a PUWER inspection looks at, from HSE's code of practice and its leaflet for employers:
- The safety related parts first. The code of practice says an inspection "should always include those safety-related parts necessary for safe operation of equipment, for example overload warning devices and limit switches".
- Guards and protection devices: "all the safety measures are in place: guards, isolators, locking mechanisms, emergency off switches etc" (INDG291).
- Controls and stops: where a test is needed, the code of practice mentions "interlocks, protection devices, controls"; HSE's leaflet lists emergency off switches among the safety measures to check.
- Visible condition: the visual part of the inspection, such as damage and wear, and the cable on hand-held power tools that HSE gives as a pre-use example.
- Functional checks: "Inspection should include, where appropriate, visual checks, functional checks and testing."
- Anything the last inspection or a defect report asked to be watched.
Who inspects does not have to be who decides what to inspect, as long as both are competent, and HSE says this "can often be done in-house". The person inspecting needs to know what to look at, what to look for and what to do if they find a problem.
What to record
The law asks that "the result of an inspection ... is recorded and kept until the next inspection under this regulation is recorded". It does not say what the record holds. The code of practice suggests (L22, paragraph 103):
- the type and model of the equipment, and its identification mark or number;
- where it is normally kept;
- the date of the inspection and who carried it out;
- any faults, the action taken, to whom the faults were reported, and the date repairs were done.
When equipment leaves the firm, or arrives from another, it needs "physical evidence that the last inspection ... has been carried out". For a large item, a copy of the last record; for small tools, HSE accepts a tag, a colour code or a label.
One more: where a machine has a maintenance log, it must be kept up to date (regulation 5). There is no duty to start one, but HSE recommends a record of maintenance for high risk equipment.
A register that keeps up
The free LOLER and PUWER register holds PUWER inspections beside LOLER examinations: one row per item, the date of the last inspection, the next date chosen by the competent person, who inspected and what they found, coloured when something is overdue or due soon.
If your inspections are recorded on paper tags and nowhere else, tell me how you keep them now. Half an hour on Teams, no charge, and I will tell you what I would build first and roughly what it would take.