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Insight · Plant and assets

LOLER, and the clock on
every lifting accessory.

Six months for anything that lifts people, twelve for everything else, and a report that has to exist before the next lift. What thorough examination means, and what it is not.

Published ·Updated ·6 min read·Written by

Lifting chains, shackles and plate clamps hung on a rack in a workshop
Every chain, shackle and clamp on this rack is a lifting accessory with its own six-month examination date under LOLER.

Everybody remembers the crane. The thing that fails a LOLER audit is the sling in the back of a van, bought two years ago, on the clock ever since, with no report anybody can produce.

The intervals, first

This is what people come looking for, so it goes at the top. Under the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998, thorough examination is required at these maximum intervals:

  • Six months for lifting equipment used to lift people, and for all lifting accessories.
  • Twelve months for all other lifting equipment.
  • Or in accordance with an examination scheme drawn up by a competent person, which can set different intervals where that is justified.

The clause that catches firms out is the second half of the first bullet. All lifting accessories means six months, and lifting accessories means slings, chains, shackles, eyebolts, hooks, spreader beams and anything else that connects the load to the machine. A telehandler is on twelve months. The sling hanging on its forks is on six.

The regulations also require examination after installation, after assembly at a new site, and after any exceptional circumstance. A dropped load is an exceptional circumstance.

What thorough examination actually is

A detailed and careful examination by a competent person, with testing where the competent person judges it necessary, aimed at detecting any defect which is or might become dangerous. That is the substance: it is a judgement made by somebody qualified to make it, not a checklist completed by whoever has the clipboard.

Competent means having the practical and theoretical knowledge and experience of the equipment to detect defects and assess their significance. It does not require a particular certificate, and it does require genuine independence of judgement. In practice, for most contractors, it means an insurance company engineer surveyor or a specialist inspection body.

What it is not

Two distinctions do most of the work here, and confusing them is the usual failure.

It is not maintenance. Servicing keeps equipment working. Thorough examination establishes whether it is safe. The same visit can include both, and the report has to be distinguishable, because a service record is not evidence of examination.

It is not a pre-use check. The operator's visual inspection before a lift is a separate and equally necessary control under PUWER, done far more often, recorded far more briefly. Neither replaces the other.

PUWER and LOLER overlap deliberately. PUWER covers all work equipment; LOLER adds requirements specific to lifting. A telehandler is subject to both, which is why it appears twice in most registers and why one of the two entries is usually out of date.

The report, and what has to happen next

The competent person must produce a report of thorough examination. It identifies the equipment, states the date of examination and the date the next one is due, records any defect which is or could become a danger, and says what action is required and by when.

Three obligations follow that are frequently missed:

  1. Defects that present an existing danger must be notified to the employer immediately, and the equipment taken out of use. Not at the end of the visit. Immediately.
  2. Certain reports must go to the enforcing authority. Where a defect involves an existing or imminent risk of serious personal injury, the competent person notifies the relevant authority.
  3. Reports must be kept and available. For equipment, until the next report. For accessories, for two years. And for a report following installation, until you stop using the equipment at that place.

Where firms actually get caught

  1. Accessories are not on the register. The plant register lists machines. The slings, chains and shackles are consumables in somebody's head, and they are the six-month population.
  2. Hired-in kit is assumed to be covered. Usually it is, and the report still has to be with the equipment and available to you. Assuming is not the same as holding.
  3. The date is tracked on the certificate. Which lives in a folder, so the only way to know what is due next month is to read every certificate.
  4. Nobody records the exceptional circumstance. A load dropped, a machine struck, a device modified. The interval resets and nobody notices because nothing wrote it down.
  5. The report says action required, and nothing happens. The report is filed as evidence of compliance while containing a defect nobody actioned, which is a considerably worse position than not having examined it at all.
Where this touches the platform

This is an expiry problem before it is anything else, and expiry is what Unibuild's asset and certificate registers do. Plant and accessories sit on the asset register with location, make, model and serial number, so the population being tracked is the real one rather than the machines somebody remembered. Examination reports attach to the asset with the date they were issued and the date the next is due. The nightly job that reads certificate and insurance expiry puts a due date in front of somebody inside a thirty day window rather than after it has passed, which is the same mechanism that demotes a subcontractor carrying lapsed cover. The examination and the judgement of competence stay with the competent person. Unibuild holds the register, the report and the clock.

Assets and inventory Plant and stores Reminders and compliance Documents and certificates

Where to start, on Monday

Count your lifting accessories. Not your machines, your accessories. Slings, chains, shackles, eyebolts, spreader beams, everything in the racking and everything in the vans. Then count how many appear on a register with a next-due date.

On most yards the first number is considerably larger than the second, and the difference is a six-month population that nobody is tracking on any clock at all.

Examination covers the equipment; the lift itself still needs planning. The free lifting operations risk assessment includes a lift plan page, and the MEWP and forklift and telehandler risk assessments carry the examination checks into the RAMS.

Sources

Checked against the source rather than against commentary. Where a schedule, a rate or a threshold is definitive on a government site, read it there.

Asked most often

The follow-up questions.

The wider problem of knowing what you own is in knowing what plant you own.

How often is a LOLER thorough examination required?
Every six months for lifting equipment used to lift people and for all lifting accessories, and every twelve months for other lifting equipment. Alternatively, at the intervals set by an examination scheme drawn up by a competent person. Examination is also required after installation, after assembly at a new site, and following any exceptional circumstance such as a dropped load.
Do slings and chains need thorough examination?
Yes, every six months. Lifting accessories means slings, chains, shackles, eyebolts, hooks, spreader beams and anything else connecting the load to the machine, and they all sit on the six-month interval. A scaffolder's gin wheel is lifting equipment and the rope through it is an accessory, so the two sit on different intervals in the same yard, which is one of the dates the note for scaffolding contractors covers. This is the clause most often missed: a telehandler is on twelve months while the sling hanging on its forks is on six.
Does hired lifting equipment need its own examination?
It needs a current report, and the hire company normally provides one with the item. Check it on delivery rather than assuming, because the date on it has to cover the period you will use it, and long hires outlast certificates. Where the hire runs past the due date, the examination becomes somebody's responsibility and the contract decides whose. Settle that at the point of hire, not at the point it expires.
Who can carry out a thorough examination?
A competent person, meaning someone with the practical and theoretical knowledge and experience of the equipment to detect defects and assess their significance. No particular certificate is specified, but genuine independence of judgement is required. For most contractors this means an insurance company engineer surveyor or a specialist inspection body.
Who counts as a competent person for a thorough examination?
Somebody with the practical and theoretical knowledge and experience to detect defects and assess their significance, and sufficiently independent to report them without pressure. In practice that is usually an insurance engineer surveyor or a specialist inspection body. The independence matters: the person who maintains the equipment is generally not the right person to certify it, however competent they are.
What does a report of thorough examination contain?
Identification of the equipment, with the date of the last examination and of this one. What was examined and the tests applied. Any defect found, and whether it is or could become a danger. The time by which remedial action is required, the next due date, and the details and signature of the competent person. A certificate without a defect section and a next due date is not a report of thorough examination.
How long must LOLER reports be kept?
For lifting equipment, until the next report is made. For lifting accessories, two years. For a report following installation, until you stop using the equipment at that location. Reports must be available for inspection, which in practice means findable rather than merely retained.
How long must a thorough examination certificate be kept?
Until the next report is made, as a minimum, and in practice keep them for the life of the equipment. The history is what shows a developing fault and what an inspector or an insurer asks for after an incident. Keeping only the current certificate satisfies the letter of it and loses the pattern, which is the part with actual safety value.
What happens if the report finds a dangerous defect?
Where a defect presents an existing danger the competent person must notify the employer immediately and the equipment must be taken out of use, not at the end of the visit. Where the defect involves an existing or imminent risk of serious personal injury, the competent person also notifies the enforcing authority. Filing a report that says action required and doing nothing is a worse position than never having examined the equipment.
What happens if equipment is used with an expired examination?
You are in breach, and the practical consequences arrive faster than the enforcement does. A principal contractor checking certificates at the gate will refuse the item. An insurer may decline a claim. If something fails, the expired certificate is the first document produced. Quarantine the item rather than using it while the examination is arranged, because the alternative puts the decision on the operator.
What is the difference between LOLER and PUWER?
PUWER covers all work equipment; LOLER adds requirements specific to lifting equipment and lifting operations. They overlap deliberately, so a telehandler is subject to both and appears twice in most registers. It is also worth separating both from maintenance: servicing keeps equipment working, thorough examination establishes whether it is safe, and a service record is not evidence of examination.
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