Hi guys, our contractor will not carry out a thorough 6 monthly inspection of lifting gear because we don't have Declarations of Conformity (some of the gear was fabricated in our workshop) or a load test certificate. However, the gear has been subject to regular inspections every 6 months by another contractor and we have certs to prove it. These were all visual inspections. LOLER states that it is the competent person who determines whether load test is required or not, but can the CP do it before they actually see the equipment? The equipment we have on site are cargo baskets, man baskets, gas bottle cages, etc. all of them have stamped labels on them that state SWL and serial number.

Yeah, I've been with the company for a few months only and had to spend a lot of time putting everything into right place as it was a bit neglected. Some certs are simply not there and some, as I said, cannot be obtained as the equipment was fabricated inhouse...

Yes they are marked - there are steel labels on them with stamped SWL and serial number. I have a history of thorough examinations of these items, but no record of load testing. I assume that SWL must have been determined during a load test, but certificates are not available. All SWLs are within reason, e.g. pallet fork attachment for mobile crane (purchased) is marked as 0.4-2t, a man basket's SWL is 500kg, so nothing out of the blue to my mind. Moreover, it is visually inspected by a competent person - another contractor who does all inspections for us and never mentioned requirement to load test the stuff. My question is, do our six monthly meet legal requirements or not? Not always easy to answer that I suppose...

I wouldn't feel happy using lifting equipment that hasn't been proof load tested and I would certainly never ask anyone else to us it. We make up our own equipment as well and then either call testers in or send the parts away to be tested. At the end of the day, the inspector is the competent person of whom LOLER speaks and he has decided that load testing is required. That pretty much makes it a mandatory requirement in my book.

No self respecting, "competent Person" SQEPd to undertake a RoTE would inspect a piece of equipment that had no DoC. The DoC tells them business name and full address of the manufacturer and, where appropriate, his authorised representative; for machinery, the name and address of the person authorised to compile the technical file, who must be established in the Community; description and identification of the product, which may including information on model, type, and serial number a declaration as to which Directive(s) the product fulfils all relevant provisions where appropriate, a reference to the harmonised standards used, and to which conformity is declared where appropriate, the name, address and identification number of the notified body which carried out conformity assessment the identity and signature of the person empowered to draw up the declaration on behalf of the manufacturer or his authorised representative. This allows them to ascertain that the item has traceability and that it has been manufactured in accordance with all relevant requirements of all product safety directives applicable to that product. It is a sign that a product has been designed and constructed for compliance with relevant essential requirements, and has been through the appropriate conformity assessment processes. The competent person is only inspecting the equipment with respect to criteria set out in "The code of practice for the safe use of lifting equipment" issued by a competent authority such as LEEA. They will be looking at wear and tear, deformation, condition, general damage amoungst many other things. The competent person is not looking at the elasticity characteristics of the metals in the load bearing parts...how can he but the DoC gives those assurances for him to sign off on. The DoC is an important part of that check...end of story.....how do you get the equipment CE marked if you have no DoC and you are not registered to put CE marks on them. The HSE would ask for it as well if you had an incident.