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BASE Lift Services
PUWER 1998 · Reg. 4–24 · Platform & passenger lifts · Competent-person verified

PUWER 1998 — the duty behind every lift on site.

BASE provides independent PUWER 1998 inspections for every lift on a UK workplace — platform, passenger, service, goods and stair. We inspect against all seven PUWER duties — suitability, maintenance, inspection, training, controls, marking, isolation — as a competent person independent of the maintenance contract, and issue a written report an auditor can actually read.

Book a PUWER inspection Talk to an engineer — 020 3435 6838
Related LOLER inspection Inspections hub Lift maintenance Maintenance contracts
Competent-person standing

Who counts as a competent person for a PUWER inspection?

The regulation does not name a certification scheme. It asks for a competent person — someone with the practical and theoretical knowledge to identify defects and assess them against the regulation. In practice that means a lift engineer who has seen enough platform and passenger systems to know what a defect actually looks like in service, who reports to the SaFed standard so the audit trail is portable, and who is independent of the team that maintains the lift — because a contractor who inspects their own maintenance work is not, by HSE definition, competent for the task.

BASE separates the two roles by design. The engineer who inspects your lift to PUWER is never the engineer who carries the maintenance contract for the same lift. Where a building uses a different maintenance contractor, we provide PUWER inspection on a standalone basis. Where a building wants both, we run the maintenance and the inspection through separate engineering teams with separate reporting lines.

That separation is the whole point. Maintenance is preventive — adjustments, lubrication, parts replacement. PUWER inspection is verification — a competent person, separately, examining the lift against the regulation and writing a finding that can be audited. Conflating the two collapses the audit trail. Keeping them separate is what makes the report defensible.

A black ring-bound PUWER risk-assessment folder propped open on a service trolley beside a closed lift-machinery control cabinet, with a safety helmet and hi-vis vest resting behind it.

  • Competent person, independent of maintenance

    The engineer who inspects your lift to PUWER is not the engineer who maintains it. SaFed practice and HSE guidance are explicit on the separation — we honour it whether you have BASE maintenance or not.

  • NVQ Level 3+ across platform and passenger

    Every engineer inspecting to PUWER is NVQ Level 3+ in lift engineering, CSCS-carded, and trained across both BS EN 81-20 (passenger) and BS EN 81-41 (platform) so the report stands up across the whole installed base.

  • SaFed reporting standard, written to be read

    Reports follow the SaFed thorough-examination format with each of the seven PUWER duties addressed explicitly. Defects are graded by significance and the recommended fix is named — never left vague.

  • SafeContractor approved · CN8516

    Audited annually for health and safety competence across the engineering business. £10m public and employer liability cover, no aggregate cap. The administrative floor a competent-person duty actually needs.

The seven PUWER duties

Every regulation, named in the report.

PUWER 1998 imposes a sequence of duties on the duty-holder. Our report addresses each by regulation number, so an auditor reading the document sees PUWER coverage in writing — not implied. Lifts that also carry passengers or loads pick up additional duties under LOLER 1998, reported alongside.

  • Reg. 4 Verified

    Suitability of work equipment

    Equipment selected and configured for the actual conditions of use — load, travel, frequency, occupancy, environment.

    Coverage
    Cycle
    All lifts
    On install · On change
  • Reg. 5 Verified

    Maintenance

    Maintenance log up to date, faults closed out, parts of regulated condition, schedule appropriate to use.

    Coverage
    Cycle
    All lifts
    Continuous
  • Reg. 6 Verified

    Inspection

    Suitable intervals under PUWER; LOLER overlays a maximum cycle for lifts (6 or 12 months). After install, assembly, relocation or significant repair.

    Coverage
    Cycle
    All lifts
    Suitable intervals
  • Reg. 9 Documented

    Training and information

    Anyone using or supervising the lift has the information to do so safely — instructions, warnings, emergency procedure.

    Coverage
    Cycle
    Operators · Duty-holders
    On install · On change
  • Reg. 14–18 Verified

    Controls, stop, isolation, stability

    Start/stop/emergency-stop controls present and functional, isolation provision operable, equipment stable through its full duty cycle.

    Coverage
    Cycle
    All lifts
    On inspection
  • Reg. 23 Verified

    Markings

    Clearly visible markings appropriate for health and safety — capacity, identification, hazard, isolation point. LOLER adds safe-working-load specifics for lifting equipment.

    Coverage
    Cycle
    All lifts
    On inspection
  • Reg. 24 Verified

    Warnings

    Warning signs and audible/visual alerts appropriate to the residual risk after guarding and design controls.

    Coverage
    Cycle
    All lifts
    On inspection
Standards covered
7 duties

Every PUWER regulation that bears on a lift, reported against by name

Engineer training
NVQ L3+

CSCS-carded, BS EN 81-20 and BS EN 81-41, SaFed reporting practice

Inspection cycle
6 / 12 mo

Aligned to LOLER cadence so duty-holders get a single audit trail

Liability cover
£10m

Public and employer, no aggregate cap, per claim

Where LOLER stacks on top

PUWER is the floor. LOLER 1998 adds specific duties to any equipment that lifts loads or people — maximum thorough-examination intervals (6 or 12 months), safe-working-load marking, stability under load, and a named competent-person report per cycle. For most lifts, both apply, and our LOLER thorough examination covers the PUWER inspection duty on the same equipment. A future PUWER knowledge guide will set out the duty-holder workflow in full.

After the inspection

What duty-holders say after a PUWER report they could actually file.

“The audit asked us to produce PUWER evidence for the lift — the previous contractor had given us a maintenance log and called it done. BASE rewrote the inspection against the seven duties, gave us a report the H&S consultant could actually file, and now the audit trail is clean.”

Helena R.

Estates Compliance Lead

Higher-Ed Campus

“We kept getting told a LOLER ticked the PUWER box, but no one would show us where. BASE's report names every PUWER regulation against the lift and grades anything that's borderline. First time in eight years anyone has explained the regulation in writing.”

Marcus T.

Facilities Director

Healthcare Estate

“A small service lift in our kitchen sat outside the LOLER cycle but very much inside PUWER. BASE handled it as a standalone PUWER inspection — competent person, independent of our maintainer, written report. Sensible, quick, properly scoped.”

Joanna P.

Operations Manager

Hospitality Group

PUWER — common questions

What duty-holders ask before commissioning an inspection.

What is PUWER and how does it apply to a lift?
PUWER is the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. It applies to any equipment used at work — including every lift in a workplace, regardless of whether it carries passengers or goods. The duty-holder (the person who owns, operates, uses or controls the equipment) must make sure the lift is suitable for the task, properly installed, maintained in good working order, inspected at suitable intervals, fitted with appropriate controls, marked and guarded against foreseeable risk. For a lift that also lifts loads or people, LOLER stacks additional duties on top — but PUWER is the floor that every lift sits on.
Do I need a separate PUWER inspection if my lift already has a current LOLER certificate?
In most cases, no. PUWER and LOLER overlap on inspection, maintenance and suitability. Where BASE issues a current LOLER thorough-examination certificate on a lift, that examination is performed to a standard that covers the PUWER inspection duty for that equipment. Where a lift does not fall inside LOLER (very rare for lifts, but possible for some bespoke service-lift configurations), or where the duty-holder wants a standalone PUWER report for an audit trail, we issue a discrete PUWER inspection report.
What's the difference between PUWER inspection and a maintenance visit?
Maintenance is preventive — adjustments, lubrication, parts replacement, scheduled servicing. PUWER inspection is verification — a competent person, separate from the maintainer, examining the lift against the regulation and writing a finding. The two roles must be separable: HSE guidance and SaFed practice are clear that the person inspecting the equipment to PUWER/LOLER cannot be the same individual who routinely maintains it. BASE provides both functions through separate engineers — or only the inspection function, where the building uses a different maintenance contractor.
Which lifts fall inside PUWER?
All of them, where they are used at work. Platform lifts, passenger lifts, service lifts, goods lifts, dumb-waiters, home lifts in a workplace setting, stairlifts in commercial premises, and scissor lifts whether for people or goods. PUWER is equipment-blind — it applies to the lift because it is work equipment, not because it is a lift. The brand or technology is irrelevant: Aritco, Cibes, Dalby, Gartec, Kalea, Motala, Nami, NTD, Phoenix, Pollock, Stannah, Vimec on the platform side; Otis, Kone, Schindler, ThyssenKrupp, Orona, Mitsubishi and Stannah on the passenger side all have the same PUWER duty applied.
How often should PUWER inspection happen?
PUWER itself says "at suitable intervals". The frequency depends on the risk profile of the equipment — usage, environment, age and the consequences of failure. For lifts in continuous service in a public or workplace setting, BASE's standard recommendation is twelve-monthly verification, aligned to the LOLER thorough-examination cadence so the duty-holder gets a single audit trail. Higher-risk environments (care homes, healthcare, schools) often warrant six-monthly. After major repair, modernisation or relocation, an out-of-cycle PUWER inspection is required before the lift returns to service.
Who counts as a "competent person" for PUWER?
PUWER inspection must be carried out by someone with the practical and theoretical knowledge to identify defects and assess their significance against the regulation. There is no formal certification scheme — competence is demonstrated by training, experience and independence. BASE engineers carrying out PUWER inspection are NVQ Level 3+ in lift engineering, CSCS-carded, trained across the BS EN 81-20 (passenger) and BS EN 81-41 (platform) standards, and work to the SaFed reporting standard. The same engineer never maintains and inspects the same lift.
What happens if a PUWER inspection finds a defect?
Defects are graded by significance against the regulation. A defect that creates an immediate risk of injury — for example a failed safety circuit, a missing or damaged guard, or a control that is not properly isolating — requires the lift to be taken out of service until rectified. A defect that does not create immediate risk but represents a departure from the regulation is reported with a remediation timeframe. Either way, the report is written to be readable by a duty-holder who is not a lift engineer, and the recommended fix is specified by part and by labour estimate — not left vague.
Do I get a written report I can show an auditor?
Yes. Every PUWER inspection produces a signed report identifying the equipment, the duty-holder, the date and the competent person; the standards examined against; the findings against each of the seven PUWER duties (suitability, maintenance, inspection, training, controls, marking, isolation); any defects with significance grading and remediation timeframe; and the date by which the next inspection is recommended. The report is filed against the lift's history so the audit trail builds over years, not just per visit.
Audit coming up?

Book a PUWER inspection. Independent, written, ready to file.

We inspect platform lifts, passenger lifts, service lifts, goods lifts and stairlifts to PUWER 1998 across the UK. Standalone or paired with a LOLER thorough examination on the same visit. Reports issued to the SaFed standard, defects graded, remediation specified.

Book a PUWER inspection 020 3435 6838

Or email enquiries@baselifts.co.uk