Good Morning,

Questions have been brought to me with regards to ladder inspection, Although tradesmen are signing off the ladder tags when the seven day period is up. What they asked me was," Am I responsible if an accident occurs during the validity of the ladder inspection period" In  other words if they sign off the ladder and an accident occurs on that ladder with the valid seven days, can they be held responsible for if the ladder failed?

Valid at point of examination (date & time) only - bit like a car's MOT

As Ray has stated the user should inspect before use and should not be relying upon any kind of sign-off tag to omit their responsibility

Had the converse discussion with our teams working off scaffolds (installed / inspected by others) - just because there is an in date scaff tag does not eliminate the need to look over the scaffold prior to ascending each day to check for weather, vehicle, vandal issues overnight.

Thanking you both kindly for the response. The ladders in question are podium and step ladders used on a contruction site, our company policy is to check them every seven days and record the date on the ladder tag. I realise that frequency of inspections vary from company to company. I am also aware that every person that uses said ladder must inspect before usage and this happens, yet back to my original question. Say I sign off the ladder lag as being in good order and two days later a person has an accident due to a ladder failure am I responsible as my signature was on two days ago stating ladder is fiut for use?

No you wouldn't be held accountable they couldn't even prove you to be negligent. Say you inspected the ladder on Monday and deemed it to be safe and someone used it on the Wednesday and it wasn't how could they prove the ladder wasn't safe on the monday when you inspected it. It could damaged two minutes after you walk away.

Just to add to Brian's sound advice, the employer/company is normally deemed responsible if there should be a failing - rarely an individual. So, just because you may have signed off a ladder as being fit for purpose it does not necessarily mean you personally are accountable for any failing provided you did it in good faith. However, in your orginal post you mentioned tradesmen are signing off ladder inspections. If by tradesmen you mean a subbie, I would feel uncomfortable delegating responsibility to a tradesman. I think part of the problem is the onerous nature of ladder inspection - every 7 days is OTT in my opinion.

Originally Posted by: MattF

Thanking you both kindly for the response. The ladders in question are podium and step ladders used on a contruction site, our company policy is to check them every seven days and record the date on the ladder tag. I realise that frequency of inspections vary from company to company. I am also aware that every person that uses said ladder must inspect before usage and this happens, yet back to my original question. Say I sign off the ladder lag as being in good order and two days later a person has an accident due to a ladder failure am I responsible as my signature was on two days ago stating ladder is fiut for use?

Hi matt,

I think you may have answered your own question. Regardless of any previous inspections, the person using should be checking before they use it. So no the responsibility will not transfer back to your inpsection two days ago, as per Roundtuits example of MOT. I know of many people whos car has developed a fault not long after an MOT

Edited by user 13 March 2017 11:53:39(UTC)  | Reason: Spelling error

Weekly inspections of ladders, stepladders, podiums, towers and even hopups recorded on an inspection tag fitted to the equipment is fairly standard practice on most larger construction sites.