A scaffold has to be inspected before it is first used, after anything that could have affected its strength or stability, and at intervals of no more than seven days while it stands. That comes from regulation 12 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005, and the record of each inspection is what the site keeps to show it happened. On a site of any size the scaffold register is one of the first documents an inspector or an auditor asks to see.
The three triggers
- Before first use. The scaffold is handed over by the scaffolding contractor, normally with a handover certificate, and inspected before anyone works from it.
- After any event likely to have affected it. High winds, an impact from plant, an alteration, a removal of ties or boards by another trade, or a period out of use.
- At intervals not exceeding seven days. The interval runs from the last inspection, not from the last Monday, which is where registers go wrong.
An inspection that finds a fault means the scaffold is not used until the fault is put right and it is inspected again.
Who can inspect
The regulations require a competent person. For a scaffold, competence normally means someone with scaffold inspection training and enough experience of the type of scaffold in front of them to judge it. That is often the site manager or a scaffold supervisor, not the scaffolder who built it, though a scaffolder can inspect.
The principal contractor does not have to do the inspection personally, but does have to make sure it happens. A subcontractor who erects and uses their own scaffold carries the duty for it.
What the record has to contain
Schedule 7 of the regulations lists what the report must include. In practice a register that satisfies it records, for each inspection:
- the site and the location and description of the scaffold
- the date and time of the inspection
- what was found, including anything that could give rise to a risk
- what action was taken about it
- what further action is needed
- the name and position of the person who inspected it
The report has to be prepared before the end of the working period in which the inspection was done and given to the person for whom it was carried out within 24 hours, and it has to be kept on site until the work is finished and then for three months after.
What inspections find
From the approving side, the faults that come up week after week are the mundane ones: a tie removed to get a window in, boards lifted for a service and not put back, a missing toe board, a ladder access that has been moved, debris loading a lift that was not designed for it. None of these is the scaffolder's fault a week after handover. All of them are why the seven-day rule exists.
What a template does not do
The register gives the fields the law asks for and a page per scaffold per period. It does not judge the scaffold. The competent person does that, and no document makes anyone compliant. Why we will never call a document "compliant".
Documents for this work
- Scaffold Inspection Register — the Schedule 7 record, one sheet per scaffold
- Mobile Tower Inspection Record — the same duty for towers
- Toolbox Talk — Scaffolds — using them without wrecking them
- All nineteen site inspection records — every register a site keeps