The regulations say work equipment must be suitable, maintained, inspected where the risk calls for it and guarded. What nobody is told is what that looks like on a Tuesday morning in front of an actual machine. A PUWER assessment is that exercise: somebody walks the equipment, asks the same set of questions of each item, and writes down what they found and what has to change.
The register comes first, and it is usually the hard part
You cannot assess what nobody has listed. Most sites can produce a list of the big machines and not of the bench grinder, the pallet truck, the pressure washer, the ladder or the hired item that arrived last month and stayed. Build the register from a walk rather than from the asset ledger, because the ledger records what was bought and not what is in use.
The questions asked of every item
Is it suitable for what it is being used for and where it is being used. Are the dangerous parts guarded, and does the guard still work rather than having been defeated for convenience. Are the controls, the stop and the isolation clear and reachable. Is it stable, lit and accessible to maintain. Are the people using it informed, instructed and trained for this item rather than for the type. The same questions each time is what makes the output comparable across a site.
Where inspection sits beside the assessment
The assessment decides whether an item needs inspection at all, and there is no statutory interval: the regulations ask for inspection where safety depends on the installation or on conditions that cause deterioration. So the answer for one machine can be after installation and at intervals, and for another none at all, and the assessment is where that is decided and recorded rather than assumed.
What the record has to survive
A change of manager, a change of contractor and an inspector asking a year later. Each item identified and located, the questions answered, the defects found with a date and an owner, and evidence of what was done. An assessment that lives in somebody's notebook is an assessment nobody can act on, which is the failure the regulations are least forgiving of because it is the cheapest to avoid.
PUWER requirements, in the order an inspector asks about them
Five questions cover most of it. Is the equipment SUITABLE for the work and the place it is used, which is where the wrong tool for the job becomes a legal failure rather than an inconvenience. Is it MAINTAINED in efficient working order, with a record where there is a maintenance log, and taken out of use when it is not. Has it been INSPECTED where the risk depends on installation or deterioration, by somebody competent, at intervals decided by the risk, and is the result recorded. Have the users had adequate INFORMATION, INSTRUCTION and TRAINING, including the people who supervise them. And are the specific hazards controlled: guarding of dangerous parts, controls and emergency stops, isolation from power sources, stability, adequate lighting, markings and warnings. The order matters because the first two are about the employer's choices and the rest are about the equipment, and an inspection that starts at the guard often finds the real problem was the purchase.
What is PUWER stand for, and what it actually covers
PUWER is the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, and the reach of the phrase work equipment is wider than people expect: any machinery, appliance, apparatus, tool or installation for use at work, from a ladder and a knife to a production line and a company vehicle's ancillary equipment. It applies to equipment provided for employees and to equipment the self employed use, whoever owns it, including hired plant and an employee's own tool brought in with permission. What it does not do is duplicate the more specific regulations that sit on top of it: lifting equipment also falls under LOLER, pressure systems, personal protective equipment and display screen equipment each have their own rules. The everyday consequence is that second hand and inherited equipment is caught: taking on a workshop means taking on its machines, and the guard nobody has replaced since the eighties is now yours.
LOLER requirements, and the thorough examination intervals
Where equipment lifts loads or people, LOLER adds five requirements on top of PUWER. The equipment must be of adequate strength and stability for each load. It must be positioned or installed so as to reduce the risk of the load striking somebody or drifting, falling or being released unintentionally. It must be marked with its safe working load, and accessories marked so their characteristics are known. Every lifting operation must be planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out safely. And it must be thoroughly examined: at least every six months for equipment used to lift PEOPLE and for lifting accessories, at least every twelve months for other lifting equipment, or at the intervals in a written examination scheme drawn up by a competent person, with a report of each examination. The report goes to the employer and, where a defect involves an existing or imminent risk of serious injury, to the enforcing authority as well.
The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998, in one page
The full name is worth knowing because tender documents use it. In substance the regulations cover any work equipment for lifting or lowering loads, including attachments used for anchoring, fixing or supporting it, which brings slings, chains, eyebolts, shackles, hooks and beam clamps inside as lifting accessories in their own right. They apply to a passenger lift, a vehicle hoist, a tail lift, a crane, a forklift, a patient hoist in a care home and a scaffold gin wheel alike. Three practical points follow. A PUWER inspection is not a thorough examination and does not satisfy the interval. A maintenance visit is neither, however thorough, unless the examination is done and reported as one. And the duty sits with whoever has control of the equipment, which on a hired crane is shared between the hirer and the owner in a way the contract should make explicit rather than leave to be argued after a failure.
Questions people ask about puwer assessments
What does a PUWER assessment actually cover?
Every item of work equipment in use: suitability for the task and the place, guarding of dangerous parts, controls and isolation, stability and access, and whether the people using it are trained for that item. It is asked machine by machine rather than as a site wide statement.
Is there a set interval for PUWER inspection?
No. The regulations require inspection where safety depends on the installation or on conditions liable to cause deterioration, so the interval is a judgement recorded in the assessment and it can legitimately be none for some items.
Who can carry one out?
Somebody competent for the equipment in question, which for a specialist machine usually means the maker or a specialist rather than a generalist. Competence is about the equipment, not about holding a certificate in assessments.
Does hired equipment need assessing?
Yes, by the user as well as the hirer. The person using it has to satisfy themselves it is suitable for the task and the place, and hired items are the ones most often absent from a site's register.