What does LOLER actually say?
Regulation 9(3) requires lifting equipment to be thoroughly examined either at the intervals the regulation sets — six months for equipment that lifts people and for lifting accessories, twelve months for everything else — or in accordance with an examination scheme. Those are alternatives, not a hierarchy. A scheme is as compliant as the default intervals, provided a competent person drew it up.
Who can draw one up?
A competent person: someone with the practical and theoretical knowledge and experience of the equipment to judge what needs examining and how often, and sufficiently independent and impartial to make objective decisions. The same standard that applies to the examination itself applies to the scheme that governs it.
Can a scheme make examinations less frequent?
Sometimes, and that is the honest answer rather than the reassuring one. A scheme can lengthen an interval where the equipment is lightly used in benign conditions and the competent person can justify it. It can equally shorten one — plant working in a foundry, a wash-down area or a marine environment may warrant examination more often than twelve months. A scheme is a judgement about risk, not a discount.
What has to be in it?
It should be in writing: a scheme nobody can produce is one an inspector, an insurer or the next examiner cannot check. In practice it identifies the equipment it covers, the parts and functions to be examined, the intervals for each, the reasoning behind those intervals, and who drew it up and when. A scheme that simply restates the default intervals is not wrong, but it is also not doing anything the regulation did not already do.
Does a scheme reduce the duty-holder's responsibility?
No. Having a scheme does not transfer the duty. If the scheme is inadequate — the intervals are too long for the conditions, or it omits plant — the duty-holder is still the one who failed to have the equipment properly examined. Commissioning a scheme from someone who also stands to gain from longer intervals is worth thinking about carefully for that reason.
Do most duty-holders need one?
Most do not. For a passenger lift, a forklift fleet or a set of slings, the default intervals are well matched to the risk and a scheme adds administration without adding safety. Schemes earn their place on complex, unusual or heavily-worked plant, where a flat six or twelve months genuinely does not fit how the equipment is used.
Sources & Further Reading
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