Statutory inspection, defined: an inspection or examination of equipment that a specific UK regulation requires, carried out by a competent person at a set interval or trigger, and recorded in a report the duty holder must keep available.
A statutory inspection is any inspection or examination of plant and equipment that the law requires, as opposed to one an organisation chooses to do for maintenance or quality reasons. In the UK the duty comes from a small set of regulations made under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, each covering a class of equipment and setting its own rules on who inspects, how often and what record results.
The term is a hub rather than a single duty. A site engineer asked whether the statutory inspections are up to date is being asked about several regimes at once.
Which UK regulations require statutory inspections
- LOLER, the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998. Thorough examination of lifting equipment by a competent person: every 6 months for equipment that lifts people and for lifting accessories, every 12 months for other lifting equipment, or per a written scheme, plus after exceptional circumstances. Output: a Schedule 1 report. Serious defects are reported to the enforcing authority.
- PUWER, the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. Regulation 6 inspection of work equipment after installation, at suitable intervals where deterioration could cause danger, and after exceptional circumstances. Intervals are set by the risk assessment. Output: a record kept until the next inspection.
- PSSR, the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000. Examination of pressure systems (compressors and receivers, steam boilers, autoclaves) in accordance with a written scheme of examination drawn up or certified by a competent person. The scheme sets the parts examined and the intervals. Output: a report of examination.
- EAWR, the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989. Regulation 4 requires electrical systems to be maintained so as to prevent danger. The regulation sets no intervals and names no specific inspection, but the accepted way to demonstrate compliance is periodic inspection and testing by a competent person, recorded in a condition report for fixed installations and in test records for portable equipment.
Other regimes sit beside these: the Work at Height Regulations 2005 for scaffold inspection, COSHH for local exhaust ventilation, and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for fire safety equipment. Each has its own competent person and record rules.
What competent person means across the regulations
None of the regulations defines competence by a named qualification. The common thread is enough practical and theoretical knowledge, and enough experience of the equipment, to find defects and judge whether it can safely stay in use. LOLER and PSSR expect independence and impartiality, which is why the work is usually done by an engineer surveyor from an inspection body or the insurer. PUWER and EAWR allow in-house staff or contractors where their competence matches the equipment. Whichever regime applies, the duty holder stays responsible: appointing a competent person discharges part of the duty, it does not transfer it. See inspector competence.
Statutory inspection versus user checks and maintenance
A statutory inspection is the formal, recorded examination the regulation names. It is not the operator's pre-use check, which catches damage between examinations, and it is not the service visit, which keeps the equipment in repair. All three exist on a well-run site and each produces its own record. The mistake is to let one stand in for another: an annual service does not examine a hoist for LOLER, and daily forklift sheets do not prove a thorough examination took place. The entries on LOLER inspection, thorough examination and PUWER inspection go into each in detail; health and safety inspection covers workplace inspections not tied to one piece of equipment.
Statutory inspection example: a distribution warehouse
A regional distribution centre holds forklifts, a goods lift, dock levellers, an air compressor and a fixed electrical installation. The compliance manager keeps one schedule. The forklifts and dock levellers are on 12 month LOLER thorough examination; the goods lift, which carries people, and the yard slings are on 6 months. The compressor receiver is examined under its PSSR written scheme. The fixed wiring had its periodic inspection under EAWR five years ago and is due. The racking, under PUWER, is inspected weekly by a trained supervisor and annually by an external inspector. When the goods lift surveyor finds a worn suspension rope, the report states the lift must not be used until the rope is replaced. The compliance manager takes the lift out of service the same day, logs the report and books the repair.
Report retention: how long the records must be kept
The retention rules differ, and the differences trip people up:
- LOLER: a periodic examination report until the next one is made or two years, whichever is later; the first-use report of installed equipment for as long as it is used at that place; an accessory report for two years.
- PUWER: the inspection record until the next inspection is recorded.
- PSSR: the written scheme and examination reports for the life of the system.
- EAWR: no fixed period in the regulation; keep the previous condition report as the baseline for the next one.
Most organisations hold everything against an asset register with the next-due date per item, and file the inspection reports and repair records alongside. See inspection interval for how due dates are tracked.
Remote capture has a limited and honest place in this. The statutory examination is done in person by the competent person, and nothing sent by phone changes that. What can be captured remotely is the evidence around it: the operator's pre-use check, photos of a defect and the data plate, or a photo of the report so the office copy is complete. With Venta Capture, a product of VentaVid, the operator or contractor is sent a link, follows guided steps in the mobile browser with no app, and the submission arrives timestamped and sealed for review. See the Venta Capture pages.
In practice: see how field service teams use Venta Capture.