Posted By David Matthew You would have to go on a suitable course and have the relevant experience but before you do anything speak to your insurers to make sure what you are proposing is acceptable to them. Many insurers don't like in-house inspection in case there is a conflict of interest. It also helps to limit liability if statutory inspection is done externally which helps to keep down premiums. Regards David.

Posted By nheathsiae Hi tb, Your problem will be your insurance company just as others have stated!! I'm a qualified inspector of Rope Access Equipment and PPE. We use EXACTLY the same equipment to lift loads up to about 100Kg but these items are classified as "lifting only" and I cannot inspect them. Had a massive argument with our insurers about this. If I can certify a "sling" to hang a person off then why not for a load. They came back and said how do you know the weight of the load, I replied how does the company charging us £XXXX.XX know what load we will apply? They would not move on this point!! Nick

Posted By Nick Andrews You may wish to visit the Safed website as a starting point. Safed member companies specialise in in-service inspection and are externally audited regularly to ensure quality standards are met and maintained. Insurance companies employ engineer surveyors to carry out thorough examinations on their behalf (there are other companies who also do this but the majority are employed by insurance companies). The engineer surveyor is deemed the competent person within his/her specialist field and is/are tested and audited regularly to ensure he/she meet the standard. Good luck in your endeavours and I hope you are never hauled up in front of the the man/woman in the curly wig. Think very carefully about how you would go about proving your in house standard of competence and what measures you took to ensure these standards were maintained. Are your standards equal to those used by a Safed member company as it is likely that this will be the benchmark used to compare against. Best regards Nick

Posted By Nick Andrews Dave Apologies, I should have declared and interest but did not think it was important. Ok I will come clean, I am an engineer surveyor by day. It is not something I need to be ashamed of!! (or maybe it is after reading your post). Please read my response again, it was not a sales pitch, simply pitching another angle into the arena. There is absolutely no reason why anyone can't inspect in-house provided it is done by the right people. Just be careful! Lawyers are very clever individuals, who can very quickly make someone look very foolish in the right circumstances. If it were my company then I would at the very least be looking to have my in-house inspectors competence checked by a third party. You sound very bitter towards insurance companies. I can only assume you've had a bad experience in the past. This is regrettable. Use of the words "protection racket" is probably a bit strong. Speaking from experience, the company I work for will gladly provide the info you require. We regularly provides Cv's of staff to clients. As a client, if you are then not happy with what you see, you are quite at liberty to take your business elsewhere (I don't recall this ever happening in the twenty years I have been employed as an ES). Your statement "I always demand to see proof of competency of their inspectors, and often find they have less than the people they're trying to replace." ??? A Very Very Bold Statement. Would you like to qualify this? How many insurance companies have you demanded proof of competency off? Use of the word "often" implies you have been quite successful at proving either lack of competence or incompetence. (If you respond please leave the company(ies) name(s) out as we don't want to enter the bounds of libel.) I won't bore you with the details of my own competence or background/supplementary qualifications, but they will stand up in a court of law, as will those of my colleugues. Best regards Nick