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LOLER Regulations: A Compliance Guide for Facilities Management

Safety in facilities management goes far beyond preventing slips and conducting fire drills. When heavy lifting equipment is involved, the risks and legal responsibilities increase significantly. For facilities managers and property owners in the UK, ensuring the safety of lifting operations is not just best practice; it’s a crucial legal requirement under the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER).

Understanding what LOLER is and how it applies to your site is essential for maintaining a safe environment and avoiding severe legal penalties. Whether you manage a commercial office with passenger lifts or a warehouse with goods hoists, the LOLER regulations lay out the rules for managing, inspecting, and maintaining your assets.

Whether you’re a facilities manager or supplier, this blog offers a clear overview of:

LOLER requirements
explains your responsibilities regarding inspections and testing
how to ensure full compliance across your supply chain to minimise risk effectively
How to carry out work safely on-site

What is LOLER?

LOLER stands for the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998.

Introduced under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, these regulations aim to minimise the risk of injury from lifting equipment used at work. Their primary objective is to ensure that all lifting equipment is safe, suitable for its purpose, and properly marked. The Health & Safety Executive states this work must be ‘properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out in a safe manner‘.

LOLER Regulations apply to any organisation or business whose employees operate lifting equipment. This places legal duties on individuals and companies who own, operate, or control lifting equipment. In facilities management, this often means the facilities manager or property owner assumes the role of “duty holder.”

Compliance isn’t optional. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) rigorously enforces these regulations. Failing to comply can result in prosecution, significant fines, and, most importantly, serious injury or loss of life.

What equipment is covered by LOLER?

In the context of facilities management, a wide range of equipment falls under LOLER regulations. A common misunderstanding is that LOLER only applies to large industrial cranes. In reality, it includes any equipment used for lifting or lowering loads at work, including attachments used for securing or supporting it.

To effectively manage compliance, it’s important to distinguish between lifting equipment and lifting accessories. The HSE distinguishes these:

Lifting Equipment

Passenger lifts and goods lifts: Common in nearly all commercial buildings.
Vehicle tail lifts: Often used on delivery vehicles entering loading bays.
Window cleaning cradles: Essential for high-rise building maintenance.
Cranes and hoists: Used in construction or extensive refurbishment projects.
Patient hoists: Vital in healthcare settings.

Lifting Accessories (tackle):

Chains and slings.
Eyebolts and shackles.
Hooks and clamps.

LOLER requirements apply regardless of whether you own or hire the equipment.

If a contractor brings a crane onto your site, as a facilities manager, you’re responsible for ensuring the equipment is compliant. Simply not owning the machinery doesn’t relieve you of your duty to ensure safety on your premises.

Perform due diligence on the suppliers you’re working with, with an effective solution and a way of keeping an audit trail.

LOLER inspections and testing

Regular maintenance isn’t enough, therefore you must adhere to strict schedules for LOLER inspections, formally known as “Thorough Examinations.” These assessments involve systematic checks of the equipment and its safety-critical components, carried out at specified intervals throughout the lifetime of the equipment.

The HSE states that regular examinations should be carried out:

Before use for the first time
After assembly and before use at each location
Regularly, while in service
Following exceptional circumstances

‘Thorough Examination’ interval timeframes:

Every 6 months: For lifting equipment used to lift people (e.g., passenger lifts, window cleaning cradles) and all lifting accessories (e.g., chains, slings).
Every 12 months: For all other lifting equipment (e.g., goods lifts, cranes).

Think of a Thorough Examination as the equivalent of an MOT for a car. Routine maintenance keeps the car running (e.g., changing oil, checking tyres), but the MOT confirms it’s safe for the road. Similarly, LOLER testing verifies lifting equipment is safe for use.

These inspections must be carried out by a ‘Competent Person’; someone with sufficient technical and practical expertise to detect defects and assess their severity. This individual must also be impartial and independent to ensure objective decision-making.

What is a LOLER Certificate and why is it important?

LOLER certificates serve as your key evidence of compliance. During health and safety audits or insurance inspections, you’ll need to present these reports. A valid report confirms that the equipment was deemed safe to use at the time of the examination.

What happens if you don’t have a LOLER certificate?

Legal Action: Operating without a valid report is against the law.
Invalid Insurance: Most insurance policies require compliance with statutory regulations. If an incident occurs involving uncertified equipment, your insurer may refuse to provide coverage.
Reputation Damage: Safety failures can erode trust with tenants and clients.

If a Competent Person identifies a defect that poses (or could pose) a danger, they will issue a “defect report.” You must address these issues immediately. If the risk is imminent, the equipment must be taken out of service to eliminate risk and ensure ongoing safety.

LOLER responsibilities for facilities buyers and suppliers

Managing your own equipment is one thing; ensuring the compliance of contractors’ equipment is another. This is an area where many facilities managers face significant risks.

LOLER responsibilities for Buyers and Facilities Managers

As a Buyer or Facilities Manager, you must ensure any supplier bringing lifting equipment onto your site is fully compliant. Ask yourself: “Are my suppliers up to date with LOLER?”

Relying on unverified supply chains is risky. If a supplier uses faulty equipment or gear on your premises that hasn’t been inspected and an accident happens, liability could extend to you for failing to manage the site effectively.

LOLER responsibilities for Suppliers

Suppliers must provide up to date Thorough Examination reports for their equipment before use. Lifting accessories must be inspected every 6 months, and machinery must be inspected every 12 months (or 6 months if used to lift people).

Manually verifying these documents can be time-consuming and error-prone. Digital Facilities Management supply chain management platforms can help streamline verification processes, storing and tracking compliance data to ensure all vendors meet LOLER requirements before working on-site.

Mitigate LOLER risk on-site with Facilitiesline

Do you know when one of your suppliers’ certificates is going to expire? Or if they’ve completed necessary inspections on equipment?

Times that by a few hundred, or even thousand, and you’ll find yourself trying to keep on top of your Facilities subcontractor compliance requirements, all the time – something that you cannot risk falling behind on and facing possible legal consequences.

If you’re a Facilities Manager, you may want to consider a CAFM (Computer-Aided Facility Management) system. Why?

Even if it’s manually with local notifications on when items or training will expire, it’s better than nothing, although an automated CAFM system can provide automated reminders to relevant individuals.

As a facilities supplier, this is important as it demonstrates a proactive, safe approach to keeping on top of administration, training, and health and safety requirements: something that will very likely persuade buyers to work with them over someone who isn’t on top of items for inspection.

If you’re a buyer, managing compliance across a varied supply chain is complex. Facilitiesline simplifies this process, helping Buyers work only with suppliers who comply with LOLER regulations. Our Facilities supply chain management platform gives you the visibility needed to verify that your partners are safe, compliant, and ready to get the job done, so you can:

Find pre-qualified suppliers with LOLER certificates
Expand your supply chain
Maintain a thorough audit trail
Keep documentation in one place
Save hours reviewing suppliers – outsource your PQQ to us
Set bespoke questions – we do the verification for you

Key takeaways

To maintain a safe and legally compliant environment, focus on these three pillars of LOLER compliance:

Identify: Pinpoint all equipment on your site that falls under LOLER regulations, including contractor equipment.
Examine: Stick to the LOLER inspection cycles when using equipment.
Verify: Manage your supply chain by ensuring all contractors hold up-to-date certification (Report of Thorough Examination) for their lifting equipment.

I’m a…

Facilities Manager	Facilities supplier
Keep on top of your supply chain’s compliance.	Make sure you have trained, skilled competent people in your workforce. Have the right certificates – and make sure they’re in date.
Simplify your facilities management with our supply chain solutions.	Learn more about our Facilitiesline compliance memberships.

FAQs

What does LOLER stand for?

LOLER stands for the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998.

What is LOLER testing?

LOLER testing, also known as a Thorough Examination, is a detailed inspection of lifting equipment and its safety-critical components, carried out by a Competent Person to detect current or potential defects.

Is a LOLER certificate a legal requirement?

Yes. While ‘certificate’ is the informal term, the legal requirement is to hold a current Report of Thorough Examination. Operating lifting equipment without one breaches UK health and safety law.

What is the difference between PUWER and LOLER?

PUWER (Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations) applies to all work equipment. LOLER specifically applies to lifting equipment. In general, complying with LOLER ensures you meet relevant PUWER requirements, but LOLER addresses additional duties specific to lifting operations.

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