Work at height is any work where a person could fall a distance liable to cause injury. There is no minimum height in the Work at Height Regulations 2005; a fall from a stepladder counts. Falls remain the largest single cause of deaths on construction sites, which is why every main contractor asks two questions before anyone leaves the ground: has this been planned, and is this the kind of work that needs a permit on top of the plan.
The order the law sets
Regulation 4 requires the work to be properly planned, appropriately supervised and carried out in a safe way. Regulation 6 sets the hierarchy, and the reviewer reads a RAMS against it:
- Avoid work at height where it is reasonably practicable to do the job from the ground or from an existing safe place.
- Prevent falls — a scaffold with guardrails, a MEWP, a tower, edge protection, a working platform.
- Minimise the distance and consequences of a fall where it cannot be prevented — nets, airbags, a harness with a fall arrest system and a rescue plan.
A RAMS that goes straight to "operatives will wear harnesses" has skipped two steps and will be sent back.
When a RAMS is enough
Most work at height on a managed site is covered by a RAMS and the equipment it names: work from a handed-over scaffold that is being inspected, from a MEWP with trained operators, from a tower built and checked by someone trained to do it. The RAMS describes the work and the equipment, the scaffold register and the inspection records show the equipment is fit, and the site's normal supervision covers the rest.
Ladders are permitted for short-duration, low-risk work where a safer method is not reasonably practicable. That is a judgement in the RAMS, not a default.
When a permit is needed as well
A permit to work is for work at height that the site's standing arrangements do not already control: where the fall risk is not managed by a handed-over scaffold or MEWP arrangement, where edge protection has to be removed, where the work is on a fragile roof or near a leading edge, where a harness is the last line and somebody has to plan the rescue before the first person clips on. The permit exists to make one named person confirm, on that day, that the precautions are actually in place and that a rescue can happen inside the time a suspended person has.
Roof work has its own permit on most sites because fragile surfaces, roof lights and unprotected edges kill people who thought they were on something solid.
The records that sit under it
- the scaffold and tower inspection registers
- the harness and lanyard inspection register, because fall arrest equipment is inspected before use and periodically, and the record shows it
- the ladder register, so a ladder with a split stile does not stay in circulation
What a template does not do
The permit and the RAMS give the structure and the questions. They do not know your roof. A competent person plans the work, decides where it sits in the hierarchy and signs it. No document makes anyone compliant. Why we will never call a document "compliant".
Documents for this work
- Work at Height Permit — for a fall risk not already controlled by a handed-over scaffold or MEWP arrangement
- Roof Work Permit — fragile surfaces, roof lights and leading edges
- Harness and Lanyard Inspection Register
- Ladder and Stepladder Register
- Toolbox Talk — Working at Height