PUWER Inspection Checklist: What Regulation 6 Actually Requires

PUWER Inspection Checklist: What Regulation 6 Actually Requires

PUWER — the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 — is the UK regulation that covers essentially every piece of equipment used at work: machines, power tools, ladders, forklifts, even the guillotine in the print room. It's also one of the most cited regulations in HSE enforcement, because it's broad, it's old enough that ignorance is no defence, and its duties are specific enough to check against.

Here's what it requires in plain English, where inspections fit, and a free assessment checklist you can run per asset.

Who and What PUWER Covers

If your business provides equipment for work — or controls how it's used — PUWER applies. "Work equipment" is deliberately wide: fixed machinery, portable tools, lifting kit, access equipment, vehicles used at work. (Lifting equipment additionally falls under LOLER — the LOLER examination checklist covers that separate regime. Plug-in electrical safety is usually demonstrated through PAT testing.)

The Core Duties

Suitability (Reg 4). Equipment must be suitable for the task and the conditions. A domestic extension lead in a wet workshop fails this test before anything breaks.

Maintenance (Reg 5). Equipment must be maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair. Where a maintenance log exists, it must be kept up to date. This is the regulation that makes your maintenance log a legal document in practice — the inspector's first question is usually "show me the records."

Inspection (Reg 6). Where safety depends on installation conditions or where deterioration would create danger, equipment must be inspected:

• after installation and before first use (or after reassembly at a new location), and
• at suitable intervals thereafter, and after any exceptional event likely to have caused damage — collision, modification, long idle period.

The interval is yours to set, based on deterioration risk — and the results must be recorded and kept. This is the piece most operations miss: not the inspecting, the recording of a defined regime.

Specific risks and competence (Regs 7–9). Where equipment carries specific risks, use gets restricted to designated, trained people — and everyone using equipment needs adequate information, instruction, and training.

Guarding and protection (Regs 11–12). Dangerous parts guarded; protection against ejected material, overheating, and similar specified hazards.

Controls and isolation (Regs 14–19). Suitable, marked start/stop/emergency-stop controls, and a way to isolate the equipment from all energy sources — identifiable and accessible.

The rest (Regs 20–24). Stability, lighting for use and maintenance, maintenance carried out safely (shut down where possible), and appropriate markings and warnings.

Turning That into an Inspection Regime

The workable pattern per asset:

1. Assess once — run the checklist below against each item of work equipment; record suitability, guarding, controls, and training status.
2. Set the inspection interval by deterioration risk — a press brake in constant use isn't a bench vice. High/medium/low is enough resolution to start.
3. Schedule and record — every inspection dated, resulted, and kept. Under Reg 6 an unrecorded inspection may as well not have happened.
4. Re-inspect on triggers — relocation, modification, damage, or return from a long lay-up.

The checklist covers the regulation-by-regulation assessment plus an inspection schedule sheet with risk-rated intervals.

Where This Bites in Practice

PUWER enforcement almost never starts with a proactive audit — it starts with an incident, and then works backwards through your records. The questions are predictable: Was the equipment suitable? When was it last maintained? Show me the inspection records. Who was trained to use it? Every one of those is answered by records, or not at all.

Which is why PUWER compliance is really a record-keeping problem wearing a safety costume — the same shape as every compliance regime. One assessment per asset, one interval per risk level, one record per inspection: trivially manageable for ten assets, quietly impossible on spreadsheets for four hundred. A CMMS that holds the assessment against the asset, recurs the inspection on its interval, and stores each completed record turns the incident-investigation question into a two-minute report.