LOLER

LOLER stands for the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998. It applies to equipment used for lifting or lowering loads, including the accessories that attach a load to the machine, and it sits on top of the general duties in PUWER.

Its requirements are easy to summarise and easy to fall behind on. Lifting equipment must be strong and stable enough for the load. It must be positioned and installed so that risks are minimised. It must be marked with its safe working load. Lifting operations must be planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised, and carried out safely. And the equipment must be thoroughly examined at set intervals.

Thorough examination

This is where most enforcement and most contractual friction sits.

Equipment used to lift loads needs thorough examination at least every twelve months. Equipment used to lift people, and lifting accessories such as slings, chains and eyebolts, need it every six. Examination is also required after installation or assembly at a new site, and after exceptional circumstances such as damage, overload or significant repair.

A thorough examination is not a service. It is a detailed inspection by a competent person, independent enough to give an objective view, and it produces a report. Assuming the hire company’s service visit covered it is a common way of arriving at an inspection with no valid report to show.

Lift planning

Every lifting operation must be planned by someone competent. For routine repetitive lifts, a generic plan for that class of operation is acceptable. For anything complex, tandem lifts, lifts over occupied areas, blind lifts, or work near overhead services, the plan needs to be specific and written, and the appointed person supervising it needs the authority to stop it.

Where the lift also puts people at height, the work at height duties apply alongside, and a MEWP carrying people falls into the six-month examination interval rather than twelve.

The record problem

Lifting kit moves between sites, often on hire, and the certificate moves with it or does not. The practical failure is a chain sling or a telehandler on site with an expired report, discovered by a client audit rather than by anyone in the business.

Holding examination reports against the equipment, with the expiry date visible ahead of time, is what stops that. It is the same discipline as tracking cards against people, and it is what Sync’s credential management is built to do.