LOLER regulations explained: lifting equipment inspection requirements

Every crane, hoist, lift and lifting sling in UK workplaces operates under one set of regulations: the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations, universally abbreviated to LOLER. Introduced in 1998, the regulations apply wherever lifting equipment is used at work, and their central demand is simple to state and demanding to satisfy — lifting equipment must be strong, stable and safe, and it must be thoroughly examined at defined intervals by a competent person. Yet the regulations are among the most commonly misunderstood in workplace safety, with employers unsure which equipment falls within scope, what “thorough examination” actually requires, and who bears legal responsibility when things go wrong. This guide explains the regulations, their scope, the inspection requirements and the practical duties they place on employers.

What LOLER is and what equipment it covers

LOLER implements European directives on the use of work equipment, forming part of the family of regulations that includes PUWER — the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations — which covers work equipment generally. Where PUWER applies to all work equipment, LOLER adds specific, stricter duties for equipment whose primary purpose is lifting. The distinction matters: a fork-lift truck’s engine and brakes fall under PUWER, but its lifting capability falls under LOLER.

The scope of “lifting equipment” is wide. The regulations define it as work equipment for lifting or lowering loads, and a load includes people as well as materials. The practical reach is therefore extensive.

Cranes of every type, from tower cranes and mobile cranes to gantry and jib cranes in workshops.
Lifts and hoists, including passenger lifts, goods lifts, platform lifts and vehicle lifts in garages.
Fork-lift trucks, telehandlers and pallet trucks, where their lifting function is used.
Lifting accessories such as slings, shackles, eyebolts, lifting beams and spreader frames.
Window cleaning equipment, garage lifts, vehicle inspection lifts and similar workplace lifting systems.

The definition deliberately catches equipment that people might not think of as “lifting equipment.” A scissor lift table in a factory, a tail lift on a delivery van used for work, and even a bath hoist in a care home all fall within LOLER’s scope. What the regulations exclude is equipment whose lifting function is incidental — a hand trolley moved by muscle, for example, or conveyor systems where the load is never suspended free.

The core duties the regulations impose

LOLER’s requirements concentrate on four areas: the equipment itself, its use, its examination and the people involved. Each area carries duties for employers, the self-employed and those who control equipment used by others, such as hiring companies.

The equipment must be strong and stable enough for its tasks, positioned safely, and visibly marked with the safe working loads for its configurations. Where a load is lifted by more than one item of equipment, arrangements must ensure coordination. Chains, ropes and slings must be clearly marked with their safe working load and inspected between thorough examinations. And critically, lifting equipment used to lift people must meet stricter standards still: a factor of safety, means of preventing a fall, and an enclosed carrier or other protective arrangement.

The operational duties run alongside. Every lifting operation must be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out safely. This planning duty is among LOLER’s most cited requirements, and its practical meaning is that complex lifts — those with unusual loads, restricted access or multiple cranes — require a written plan rather than a nod between colleagues. Simple, routine lifts performed in normal conditions are exempt from the written plan requirement, but the planning duty itself applies to every lift without exception.

Thorough examination: the heart of the regulations

The requirement at the centre of LOLER is the thorough examination. This is not a casual visual check — it is a systematic, detailed inspection by a competent person, carried out to detect any defect liable to cause danger. The regulations define precisely when examinations must occur, and the intervals are fixed unless a written scheme exists.

Equipment type	Minimum examination frequency	Notes
Lifting equipment for lifting people	Every 6 months	Lifts, hoists and equipment carrying persons
All other lifting equipment and accessories	Every 12 months	Cranes, hoists, slings, accessories
New or second-hand equipment, first use	Before use	Examination or verification before entering service
After installation or assembly	Before use	Cranes and similar equipment on re-erection
Following exceptional circumstances	After repair, modification or overload	Examination before returning to service

These frequencies are minimums. Where a written examination scheme drawn up by a competent person specifies different intervals — shorter for equipment in harsh service, longer for equipment in light duty with documented justification — that scheme governs instead. What never varies is the competent person: the examiner must have practical and theoretical knowledge and experience of the equipment being examined, and must be independent of the employer’s operational pressures. The examiner can be an insurance engineer, a specialist inspection company or a competent in-house engineer, but independence and competence are non-negotiable.

Records, reports and the paperwork that proves compliance

Every thorough examination generates a report, and LOLER specifies what that report must contain and what must happen to it. The examiner must notify defects that are immediate or potential dangers to the employer without delay, and send the report promptly — within 28 days of the examination. The report must identify the equipment, state the examination date and the date when the next examination is due, describe the condition found, and name the defects along with any restrictions on use until repair.

Defects creating an immediate or potential danger must be reported to the employer as soon as possible, and the employer must then act. Where the defect is immediate, the equipment must be stopped from use until repaired. The employer must keep copies of examination reports, and records of any other examination for as long as the equipment remains in use — with a two-year minimum retention after the equipment leaves use.

Beyond thorough examinations, daily and pre-use checks by operators sit alongside, and they are not a substitute for formal examination but a supplement to it. The division of responsibility is worth stating clearly: operators check what they can see and hear during normal use, while the competent person examines what operators cannot — internal wear, hidden cracks, chain elongation, wire rope deterioration and the general condition of components beneath casings.

Who is responsible for what

LOLER assigns duties across several roles, and confusion between them is a common source of non-compliance. The duties fall into a hierarchy that maps onto the equipment’s life.

Employers, the self-employed and equipment controllers. Carry the primary duty to ensure lifting equipment is safe, properly examined and marked. Even hiring a crane brings responsibility for how it is used on site, and hirers of equipment owe duties to verify what they hire.
The competent person. Performs thorough examinations and defect reporting. Their competence must match the equipment examined, and their independence from the employer’s operational demands is a regulatory requirement, not a preference.
Operators. Use the equipment in accordance with information and training, perform daily checks, and stop use of defective equipment. They are not responsible for the thorough examination, but they are the first line of defence against a machine deteriorating between examinations.
Planning and supervision roles. The person who plans lifting operations must be competent for that task, and supervision must match the complexity of the lift — a simple, routine lift needs less formal planning than a tandem crane operation.

One practical point deserves emphasis: hiring companies owe duties too. A crane hire company supplying the operator owes duties over the operator’s competence, while the person in control of the site controls the lifting operation’s planning. Where the two overlap, written agreements should make the division of responsibility explicit — a practice that prevents precisely the ambiguity that leads to incidents and disputes after accidents.

Common failures and how they surface

Enforcement action and incident investigations reveal recurring patterns of non-compliance, and most are neither exotic nor technical. The failures that surface repeatedly are these.

Overdue thorough examinations. The most common enforcement finding across industries, usually arising from poor record-keeping rather than deliberate neglect. Examinations lapse unnoticed until an inspector or insurer requests records.
Unmarked or mis-marked accessories. Slings, shackles and lifting points without clear safe working load markings, or marked at values no longer valid after repair.
Planning failures on complex lifts. Operations involving multiple cranes, unusual loads or restricted access carried out without a written plan, frequently exposed when something goes wrong.
Lifting people on equipment not designed for it. Fork-lift trucks, telehandlers and others used to raise workers without proper platforms, among the most dangerous and heavily enforced failures in the regulations.
Missing daily checks. Operators skipping pre-use checks, which then conceals deterioration until the next thorough examination finds it — or until a component fails.

Each failure is preventable, and each traces back to a management system gap rather than to an equipment defect. This is worth stating because it reframes LOLER compliance as a management discipline rather than a technical one: organisations that keep records current, plan their lifts and brief their operators rarely meet enforcement action, regardless of the age or complexity of their equipment.

Building a compliant lifting regime

Practical compliance with LOLER is achievable for any organisation willing to systematise its approach. The building blocks are these.

Inventory every lifting item. From the largest crane to the smallest shackle, each item needs a record of what it is, where it is and when its examination falls due.
Establish the examination schedule. Fixed intervals or a written scheme, agreed with the competent person, with reminders set well before due dates.
Appoint and verify the competent person. Confirm their independence, competence and the scope of what they examine.
Train operators on daily checks. Brief, documented pre-use checks by trained operators catch problems between examinations.
Plan non-routine lifts formally. Written plans for anything beyond simple, routine lifting, reviewed by a competent person.
Keep records accessible. Reports, certificates and repair records filed so they can be produced on demand to inspectors, insurers or clients.

Systems rather than heroics keep organisations compliant. The organisations that struggle are those that treat LOLER as an annual formality rather than a continuous discipline.

Safety as a system, not a signature

LOLER’s requirements boil down to a compact set of principles: equipment strong and stable for its task, marked with its safe working load, examined at defined intervals by a competent and independent person, operated by trained users, and planned whenever the operation is anything beyond routine. None of these demands is difficult individually; the challenge lies in maintaining them consistently across every item, every operator and every lift. The regulations exist because lifting operations concentrate enormous energy in small moments of time — and when they go wrong, they go catastrophically wrong. Employers who treat thorough examinations as genuine safety checkpoints rather than administrative hurdles build regimes that protect their people, satisfy inspectors and insurers alike, and keep their cranes, hoists and slings turning safely year after year. The signature on the examination report is not the compliance; the system behind it is.