The statutory inspection regulations, explained in plain English

If your business uses lifting gear, work equipment, pressure systems or extraction, the law requires it to be examined by a competent person on a set schedule. Four regulations cover it: LOLER, PUWER, PSSR and COSHH.

We are an independent inspection body. We examine your equipment, we do not sell or maintain it, so every report we issue is impartial and built to stand up to the HSE.

What are statutory inspection regulations?

All four regimes flow from one parent law, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and all four are enforced by the Health and Safety Executive. Each one targets a different hazard, but they share a common spine: dangerous equipment must be examined by a competent person, on a defined schedule, with a written record you can produce on request.

They are not advisory. A breach is a criminal matter, and the duty sits with the employer, owner or person in control of the equipment, even when it is hired in rather than owned. The penalties scale with harm and turnover, but the costs that hurt most are the unbudgeted ones: a stopped site, an invalidated insurance policy, and the human cost of a preventable injury.

The hard part is rarely the inspection itself. It is knowing which regulation applies to which piece of kit, and keeping every due date in view across a busy site. That is what this page, and the four guides it links to, are here to make simple.

Every regime turns on the competent person

Whatever the hazard, the law asks the same central question: was the equipment examined by a competent person? That means someone with the genuine knowledge and experience to judge the equipment, who is independent of its operation, and who has the authority to fail it and stop it being used.

This is exactly why an examiner should not be the same party that sells or maintains the kit. A maintainer marking their own work has a commercial reason to pass it. An independent examiner has none. That independence is the difference between a report that protects you and a report that quietly exposes you.

It is also where we sit. We do not sell equipment and we do not maintain it. We examine it, we tell you the truth about its condition, and we give you a report that stands up when it matters.