What the report must actually contain
Every time your inspector completes a thorough examination, a written report must follow. That is the law. But what the report must contain, and how long you must keep that report, catches many companies out.
Regulation 10 of LOLER 1998 requires the competent person to notify the duty holder of results as soon as practicable and to produce a report covering every field in Schedule 1. A report missing any Schedule 1 field is legally incomplete. In an HSE audit, that counts as non-compliance with Regulation 10, even if the examination itself was thorough.
The 12 fields Schedule 1 requires
| # | Required field | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The safe working load | Must be clearly stated and match the marking on the equipment |
| 2 | Equipment identification | Serial number, plant number, or other unique identifier |
| 3 | Date of the thorough examination | The actual date of examination, not the date the report is written |
| 4 | Description of the equipment | Type, make, model: enough to identify it unambiguously |
| 5 | Location of the equipment | Where it was examined, relevant for fixed equipment and site-based assets |
| 6 | Condition of the equipment | Assessment of all safety-critical components examined |
| 7 | Defects found and their significance | Category (immediate danger, timescale, or observation) and required action |
| 8 | Repairs or alterations required | Where defects require attention, the action and timescale must be stated |
| 9 | Date by which repairs must be completed | Mandatory where a Category B (timescale) defect is identified |
| 10 | Whether the equipment can continue in use | If a Cat A defect is found: no. Otherwise: yes, subject to any conditions noted |
| 11 | Name and address of the competent person | The individual examiner and their employer or firm |
| 12 | Date of next thorough examination | Must be stated: this drives the compliance calendar |
What happens when a defect is found
The report does not just record that a defect exists. It must assign it to a category. There are three, and the category determines what you must do next:
The defect constitutes an existing or imminent risk of serious personal injury. The equipment must be taken out of service immediately. The competent person must send a copy of the report to the relevant enforcing authority (HSE or local authority) as well as to the duty holder.
The defect could become a danger in the future if not remedied within a specified period. The report must state the remediation deadline. Equipment may continue in use until that date, but the repair must be completed and the equipment re-examined before returning to service.
Minor findings that do not pose an immediate or future risk but should be monitored. No timescale for action is required, but the finding must be recorded in the examination report.
Paper or digital: which counts as a valid report?
Either. Schedule 1 requires a writtenreport, and "written" includes electronic format. A digitally generated PDF, a record in a compliant digital system, or a structured electronic document all satisfy the requirement, provided every Schedule 1 field is present. The HSE confirms that digital records are fully acceptable.
Digital records have a clear advantage in audits. They can be produced immediately, searched by asset or date, and exported on request. Paper records must be located, sorted, and presented manually. They also risk physical loss, damage, or deterioration over time.
Schedule 1 field by field: what each item actually requires
Each field has a specific meaning. Here is what your inspector must include, and where reports most commonly fall short:
Seven mistakes that make your report non-compliant
A report missing any Schedule 1 field is legally incomplete. An inspector whose reports are routinely incomplete puts their client's compliance record at risk and undermines the value of every examination they carry out.
How to issue and store reports so you can find them under pressure
Reports must be in a format that can be produced to the HSE on request. That means retrievable quickly, not at the end of a filing search. Paper reports must be legible and stored so they can be found by asset or date. Digital records must remain accessible for the full examination period of the equipment. A system that loses data is not a compliant record-keeping system.
Here is a useful compliance test. If an HSE inspector asked you to produce the examination report for a specific asset within two minutes, could you do it? If the answer involves searching filing cabinets, email inboxes, or shared drives, the answer is probably no. Purpose-built software stores every report against its asset record and makes it retrievable by serial number, asset type, client, or examination date in seconds. The LEEA Code of Practice supports digital report management as best practice for accredited inspection companies.