LOLER thorough examinations: how often, what happens next and how long to keep reports
Last reviewed
The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER) set out when lifting equipment must be thoroughly examined, what happens when the examiner finds a defect, and how long you must keep the reports. This guide summarises those rules. HSE’s detailed guidance is its Approved Code of Practice, L113.
What counts as lifting equipment
LOLER covers work equipment for lifting or lowering loads, including its attachments used to anchor, fix or support it, and the lifting accessories used with it. A load includes a person. HSE’s examples include cranes, lift trucks and telescopic handlers, scissor lifts and mobile elevating work platforms (MEWPs), lorry loader cranes, construction site hoists, goods and passenger lifts provided for people at work, and vehicle tail lifts. Lifting accessories include slings, chains, ropes, shackles, removable eyebolts and lifting beams.
An excavator is covered when it’s used for lifting, for example with forks, grabs or a lifting magnet, or as a crane, even if it only lifts occasionally. It isn’t covered when it’s used for normal earth-moving.
LOLER applies on top of PUWER, the general rules for all work equipment, not instead of it. Our PUWER vs LOLER guide explains how the two fit together.
When a thorough examination is needed
Under regulation 9, lifting equipment must be thoroughly examined:
- Before you first put it into service, unless it’s never been used before and comes with a declaration of conformity made within the previous 12 months, or it’s come from another business with physical evidence of its last thorough examination.
- After installation, and after it’s assembled at a new site, where its safety depends on how it’s installed.
- Periodically, where it’s exposed to conditions that could make it deteriorate dangerously: at least every 6 months for lifting accessories and equipment for lifting people, and at least every 12 months for other lifting equipment. Alternatively, the intervals can follow an examination scheme drawn up by a competent person.
- After exceptional circumstances that could affect its safety. HSE’s examples include damage, exceptionally high winds that may have overloaded it, and a failed safe load indicator that may have let it be overloaded without anyone noticing.
Where it’s appropriate, the equipment must also be inspected by a competent person at suitable intervals between thorough examinations.
Who carries it out
A thorough examination must be carried out by a competent person: someone with enough practical and theoretical knowledge and experience of the equipment to detect defects. HSE’s guidance says they should be independent and impartial enough to make judgements without fear or favour, and shouldn’t be the same person who carries out routine maintenance, because they would be checking their own work.
Thorough examinations, inspections and pre-use checks
| Check | Who does it | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-use or daily checks | The user or operator | Before use, or daily |
| Inspections | A competent person | At suitable intervals between thorough examinations, for example weekly, monthly or quarterly |
| Thorough examination | A competent person, with a written report | Every 6 or 12 months, or as set by an examination scheme |
After the examination: defects and reports
Regulation 10 sets out what happens next:
- The examiner must tell the employer straight away about any defect that is, or could become, a danger to people.
- They must write a report as soon as practicable, authenticated by signature or an equally secure method, and send it to the employer and to anyone the equipment was hired or leased from. HSE’s guidance says that in normal circumstances the report should be sent within 28 days of the examination.
- The report must include the information set out in Schedule 1 of LOLER, including the safe working load, details of any defects, and the latest date by which the next thorough examination must be carried out.
- If a defect involves an existing or imminent risk of serious personal injury, they must also send a copy of the report as soon as practicable to the relevant enforcing authority: HSE or the local authority.
- The employer must make sure the equipment isn’t used until a defect that’s a danger has been put right. For a defect that could become a danger, the report sets a date, and the equipment mustn’t be used after that date unless the defect has been fixed.
How long to keep reports
Regulation 11 sets minimum periods for keeping LOLER records:
| Record | Keep it |
|---|---|
| Declaration of conformity for new equipment | For as long as you operate the equipment |
| Report of examination before first use (other than accessories) | Until you stop using the equipment |
| Report of examination before first use (lifting accessories) | For two years after the report is made |
| Report of examination after installation or assembly | Until you stop using the equipment at that site |
| Reports of periodic thorough examinations | Until the next report is made, or for two years, whichever is later |
| Records of inspections | Until the next record is made |
HSE’s guidance (L113) says reports, the declaration of conformity and the current inspection record should be readily available to inspectors if they ask to see them. They can be kept on paper or electronically; a computer system should be protected from unauthorised alteration and able to provide a written copy when necessary. Copies should normally be kept where the equipment is used, or somewhere readily accessible whose location is known to the person in control of it. You can keep reports for longer than the minimum if they help you spot repeated defects or trends in wear.
Hired, borrowed and second-hand equipment
Regulation 9(4) says lifting equipment must not leave your business, and equipment from another business must not be used in yours, unless it’s accompanied by physical evidence that its last thorough examination has been carried out. That applies whenever equipment goes out on hire, is used by another business or is sold second hand.
HSE’s guidance says this evidence would normally be a paper copy of the last examination report, but could be a copy in electronic format. Moving equipment between your own sites doesn’t need it, provided the evidence is held centrally and available on request.
Keeping the latest report with the equipment
However you store reports, the people using, hiring and checking the equipment need to see the current one. Safe Cert puts it on the equipment as a QR code: scan it, and the latest report opens with its due date. See how Safe Cert works for lifting equipment.