LOLER Inspection: How a Thorough Examination of Lifting Equipment Works

A LOLER inspection is the thorough examination that Regulation 9 of LOLER 1998 requires: a systematic and detailed examination of lifting equipment by a competent person, who then writes a report containing the 11 items in Schedule 1. It is due before first use, after installation at a new site, at least every 6 or 12 months in service, and after anything that could have damaged the equipment. This guide covers the whole process, from what is in scope to what to do with the report. If you need the regulations themselves first, start with what LOLER is.

Thorough examination, inspection and pre-use check

LOLER and HSE's guidance describe three layers of checking. People say "LOLER inspection" for the top layer, the thorough examination, and that is the one with a statutory report.

Only the thorough examination meets Regulation 9's examination duty. A year of pre-use checks does not stand in for a missed examination, and routine servicing does not count either. HSE's lift truck guidance says plainly that regular inspections in a preventive maintenance scheme or a scheduled service are not a thorough examination.

Lifting accessories such as chains and slings do not normally need the middle layer. HSE says a proper pre-use check plus a thorough examination at the right interval is enough for them. Inspections are mostly for machinery: cranes, forklift trucks, hoists and automated stacking equipment.

What equipment needs a LOLER inspection

LOLER applies to all lifting equipment used for work, including equipment put into use before the regulations came into force in 1998. Lifting equipment is work equipment for lifting or lowering loads, including the attachments that anchor, fix or support it, such as the runway of an overhead crane. A load includes a person. Accessories are the items that attach a load to the machine.

The 6-month figure for people follows HSE's position that wherever people are lifted, whether or not the equipment was designed to lift them, it is examined every six months or under an examination scheme. An examination scheme drawn up by a competent person can replace any of these intervals.

L113 lists equipment that is outside LOLER, though it still needs maintaining and may need inspecting under PUWER. The list includes conveyor belts, winching where the load never leaves the ground, roller shutter doors, tipper trucks, the three-point linkage on a tractor, eyebolts permanently fixed in a load, and fall arrest equipment with its structural anchor eyebolts. A passenger lift in a block of flats or a shopping centre, provided for the public, isn't covered by LOLER either, though the Health and Safety at Work Act still applies to it. If it is work equipment that does not lift, keep it on a PUWER inspection register.

The four times a thorough examination is required

Regulation 9 sets four triggers.

1. Before first use. The exception is equipment that has never been used and came with an EC declaration of conformity made no more than 12 months before it goes into service. HSE treats the manufacturer's declaration as the first examination. Used equipment that arrives with a current report finding it safe doesn't need another one either.
2. After installation, and after assembly at each new site. This applies where safety depends on the installation conditions. HSE's examples are tower cranes, construction site hoists, gantry cranes and a platform lift installed in a building. Mobile equipment that drives from job to job does not count as installed. If a tower crane is climbed to a new height on the same site, a person with the right knowledge and training decides whether it needs examining again.
3. In service, at least every 6 or 12 months, or to an examination scheme. This applies to equipment exposed to conditions that cause deterioration liable to result in danger, which in practice is nearly all of it. Wet, abrasive or corrosive environments speed that up.
4. After exceptional circumstances liable to put safety at risk. The L113 Approved Code of Practice lists an accident or dangerous occurrence such as an overload or component failure, a significant change in use (more use, a change from inert loads to chemicals, moving from indoors to outdoors), and long periods out of use. Substantial modification or repair is a trigger too. L113 adds that very high winds can overload a crane and a failed safe load indicator can let an overload go unnoticed.

Our LOLER inspection frequency guide goes deeper on the 6 and 12-month clocks and examination schemes.

Who can carry out a LOLER inspection

The examiner has to be a competent person, meaning someone with enough practical and theoretical knowledge and experience of the equipment in front of them to detect defects and judge how much they matter. The law sets no single qualification. The examiner can be on your own staff, provided they have the authority and independence to make the call without fear or favour, and they should not normally be the person who maintains the equipment. In the lifting industry the LEEA Diploma is the most widely recognised qualification for examiners, and HSE's lift guidance points to UKAS accreditation to ISO/IEC 17020 as a sign of an inspection body's competence. The LOLER competent person guide covers the detail.

What the examiner checks

HSE leaves the scope to the competent person's judgement, but it has to include everything that affects the safety of the equipment, including how it is likely to deteriorate over time. For most common equipment there are industry standard procedures and criteria the examiner works to. The methods HSE lists are:

• visual examination and functional checks
• measurements of wear
• in some cases, non-destructive testing (NDT) and load testing
• some disassembly or internal examination, which can mean stripping the equipment down or removing covers

Where an examination scheme exists, the examiner covers the parts it names. Otherwise they cover every part that could lead to danger through deterioration. On common equipment, the attention goes to these parts.

Across all of these, L113 names the defects that come up most often as hazards: cracks and permanent deformation, corrosion of safety-critical parts, excessive wear or failure of moving parts such as interlocks, and significant misalignment.

LOLER testing: when a load test is part of it

"LOLER testing" usually means one of two things: the thorough examination as a whole, or a load test carried out during it. On load tests, a thorough examination includes whatever testing the competent person considers appropriate, and the competent person decides whether a load test is needed at all and what kind.

HSE says most lifting equipment does not need routine testing as part of the thorough examination, and that some overload tests can damage the equipment they are meant to check. Where a test is needed, it may not be needed at every examination. The decision rests on risk, taking account of the manufacturer's instructions on how often testing should happen. Other tests, such as NDT, can be added where the examiner needs them to judge the equipment properly.

If an overload test is done, L113 expects it to be the competent person's call and carried out with precautions: the area cleared, only essential workers present, the test finished as quickly as possible, and mobile equipment positioned away from buildings. Whatever is done, item 8(e) of Schedule 1 requires the report to give particulars of any test.

LOLER inspection checklist

Before the examination

• List every item due, with its ID, location, SWL and due date. A lifting equipment register makes this a filter instead of a hunt.
• Pull out the last report for each item, any declarations of conformity for new equipment, and the examination scheme if you work to one.
• Tell the examiner about anything that has changed since the last visit: incidents, overloads, repairs, a new environment, heavier use or long idle periods. HSE expects you to pass this on, and it can change both the examination and the scheme.
• Have the manufacturer's instructions available. The examiner uses them to decide on testing and its frequency.
• Plan downtime. Some examinations need covers off or a strip-down, and equipment in service on a production line or construction site has to be released for it.
• Gather accessories from vans, stores and sites in one place, and keep them separate from items already quarantined for repair.

On the day

• The examiner works through visual and functional checks, wear measurements, and any NDT or load test they decide is needed.
• Any defect that is or could become a danger is reported to you forthwith. HSE expects a serious one to be reported verbally on the spot.
• Equipment with a dangerous defect comes out of use there and then.

After the examination

• The written report should reach you within 28 days, the period L113 expects in normal circumstances.
• Check it against Schedule 1 and note the next examination date for each item.
• Put a date and an owner against every defect with a time limit.
• File the report and update the register. Send a copy with any item that goes out on hire or to another business.

A blank LOLER report template in PDF and Word shows every field the report needs.

The report of thorough examination

After the examination, the competent person makes a written report, authenticated by signature or an equally secure means, containing the 11 items in Schedule 1. It goes to the employer the examination was made for and to anyone the equipment was hired or leased from. HSE no longer prescribes a form, and an electronic report is acceptable as long as a written copy can be produced when needed. The report is what most people call a LOLER certificate, and our LOLER certificate guide goes through all 11 items with a worked example.

Defects and Regulation 10(3)

Regulation 10(3) treats two kinds of defect differently. Equipment with a defect that is a danger now must not be used until the defect is put right. For a defect that is not yet a danger but could become one, Schedule 1 item 8(c) states the time by which it could become dangerous, and the equipment must not be used after that time until the repair is done.

Where the examiner finds an existing or imminent risk of serious personal injury, they also send a copy of the report to the enforcing authority: HSE if the equipment is hired or leased, otherwise the authority for the premises where it was examined. L113 gives a structurally damaged crane jib as the example. Defects go in the report even when the item is scrapped on the spot or repaired immediately. L113 says failing to report a defect because it has already been fixed disguises a potentially dangerous situation.

How often LOLER inspections are due

An examination scheme can set longer or shorter intervals, but L113 says a longer one has to rest on a rigorous assessment of the risks. If you cannot produce a written scheme when an inspector asks for one, HSE assumes you are working to the 6 and 12-month periods, and expects a current report for each item. The LOLER inspection frequency guide covers schemes in full.

Hired and transferred equipment

Regulation 9(4) stops lifting equipment leaving a business, or being used in a business it came from someone else, unless it is accompanied by physical evidence that its last thorough examination was carried out. That is normally a paper or electronic copy of the last report. L113 lists what the evidence should show: who the examination was made for, where, enough to identify the equipment, the date of the last examination, whether defects found then have been fixed or remain outstanding, when the next examination is due, and the SWL for each configuration. A contractor carrying slings in a van to a client's site should have that evidence with them. Moving equipment between your own sites doesn't need it, as long as the records are held centrally and available on request.

Keeping the records

Regulation 11 sets how long each report is kept. A periodic report is kept until the next one is made, or for two years, whichever is later. A report from the examination before first use is kept until you stop using the equipment, or for two years for a lifting accessory. An installation report is kept until the equipment stops being used at that place, and an inspection record until the next one is made. Keep declarations of conformity for as long as you operate the equipment. Records can be held electronically, protected from unauthorised changes, provided you can produce a written copy for an inspector or when equipment leaves your business.

Running LOLER inspections for clients

For a lifting equipment service company, every client has its own register, every item its own 6 or 12-month clock or scheme interval, and every examination has to end in a Schedule 1 report the client can find when HSE asks. Most of what goes wrong is clerical, such as an accessory missed because it was in a van, an 8(c) deadline nobody chased, or an ID typed differently on two reports. Core runs the examination from the asset record on the technician's phone, builds the report from it, flags failed items out of service, and tracks defect deadlines and next-due dates per client, with each client seeing their own register in a portal at no per-login cost. Core's LOLER inspection software page covers the UK workflow, and the lifting equipment inspection software page covers registers across standards.

Sources

• LOLER 1998, Regulation 2 (interpretation), legislation.gov.uk
• LOLER 1998, Regulation 9 (thorough examination and inspection), legislation.gov.uk
• LOLER 1998, Regulation 10 (reports and defects), legislation.gov.uk
• LOLER 1998, Regulation 11 (keeping of information), legislation.gov.uk
• LOLER 1998, Schedule 1, legislation.gov.uk
• HSE, Thorough examinations and inspections of lifting equipment
• HSE, Lifting equipment used for lifting people at work
• HSE, Thorough examination of industrial lift trucks
• HSE L113, Safe use of lifting equipment (Approved Code of Practice and guidance)
• HSE INDG422, Thorough examination of lifting equipment: a simple guide for employers
• HSE INDG339, Thorough examination and testing of lifts
• HSE INDG290, Lifting equipment at work: a brief guide