Posted By Martin Savage
I had always understood that a failure of any lifting equipment was reportable under RIDDOR.

So when we recently had a 300kg wire sling fail when it snagged on a stillage whilst lifting a frame out of it on a construction site, I immediately thought it was reportable.

On checking the RIDDOR 95 Regs and guidance though I'm not so sure. It seems to indicate that dangerous occurrences are reportable on lifting equipment only up to the end of the hook.

Am I mistaken?

Posted By Martin Savage
The sling wasn't a part of the lift or hoist, it was part of the load. My understanding from the wording of Schedule 2 was that this would not be reportable?

Posted By ddraigice
Ah, semantics.

You're quite right. As RIDDOR is written so badly and does not use the same wording as LOLER, failure of the sling does not count.

However, if you read the guidance that goes with RIDDOR it also states that:
"The definition covers the collapse of any machinery or equipment...or any load bearing part of it" para 105

And the definition of equipment in LOLER includes attachments. Not terribly clear but my guess is that in court it could be argued just about in favour of reporting it.

Posted By Mike Draper
We had one instance where we had a similar event on a site (the sling snagged a sharp edge and was cut, the load didn't fall, as it wasn't the only sling) and I also wondered whether it was reportable or not.

Fortunately for us, one of our Clients advisers was a former HSE inspector and he provided some clarification.

The intent wasn't to capture the failure of a sling. They can't be tested and should be replaced on a routine basis. In our case, the sling was virtually new.

The intent was about identifying serial faults in similar equipment, whether they arise from failures in the underlying design, failures in maintenance or failures in thorough examination.

Take the recent events regarding tower cranes ...

As another example, we had a lifting attachment come off a FLT. It slid on to the forks and was supposed to be used for a straight lift. In the event, it was being used to pull something up and sideways, along a line parallel to the forks. Hence the attachment fell off. Reportable? No. Nothing actually failed, other than the brain of the FLT driver.

The actual paragraph in Schedule 2 says:

"The collapse of, the overturning of, or the failure of any load-bearing part of any -"

and then proceeds to list items of lifting equipment (lift, hoist, crane, etc).

If you were to go and buy a crane, you would expect to get the jib, the cable, the drum, the drive and the hook on the end. You wouldn't expect it to come with a specific set of slings or chains. You buy them separately.

One I understood the intent, I thought it was actually pretty clear.

Posted By Rich T
Don't you just love HSE definitions? (Rhetorical question - don't answer it.)

LOLER defines "lifting equipment" as equipment for raising or lowering loads and attachments for anchoring fixing and supporting loads.

RIDDOR only requires the reporting of the failure of "lifting machinery" and it's descriptions do not go on include "lifting equipment" as defined in LOLER. As my understanding of the definition of "machinery" would not include a chain, or strap, lifting net, or eyebolt - this would seem to make sense.

So my guess is, as far as reporting "dangerous occurrences" are concerned, "lifting machinery" stops at the hook. Everything after the hook is "lifting equipment".

However - as you can't ever really get it wrong by treating it as RIDDOR reportable when it might not be, then why not? It's just paperwork!