The short answer
PUWER covers all work equipment — suitability, safety, maintenance, guarding and training. LOLER adds specific duties for equipment that lifts loads or people, including fixed 6 or 12-month thorough examination intervals. Lifting equipment must satisfy both.
One sits inside the other
The clearest way to think about it: PUWER is the general rule for every piece of work equipment on your site, and LOLER is a specialist layer that applies on top of it whenever that equipment lifts something.
A pillar drill is PUWER only. A chain sling is LOLER equipment, and PUWER applies to it as work equipment too. A forklift is squarely both — LOLER for the mast, chains, forks and hydraulics that do the lifting, PUWER for the brakes, steering, visibility, seat restraint and the training of the person driving it.
| PUWER 1998 | LOLER 1998 | |
|---|---|---|
| Applies to | All work equipment | Equipment that lifts loads or people |
| Main concern | Suitability, safety, maintenance, training | Strength, stability, marking, thorough examination |
| Inspection interval | Risk based — no fixed period | 6 or 12 months, or per examination scheme |
| Record required | Inspection record | Report of thorough examination |
| Who carries it out | A competent person | A competent person |
The duties are genuinely different
Under PUWER the question is broad: is this equipment right for the job, in safe condition, adequately guarded, properly maintained, and used by someone trained to use it? The answer changes over the life of the machine, which is why the inspection interval is risk-based rather than fixed.
Under LOLER the question is narrower and harder: is this equipment strong enough and stable enough for the load, correctly marked with its safe working load, and free of defects that make lifting unsafe? Because the failure mode is sudden and severe, the interval is fixed in law rather than left to judgement.
Where businesses go wrong
- □Assuming a LOLER examination covered the machine generally — it covers the lifting function, not the brakes, guarding or controls.
- □Assuming a service contract satisfies either. Maintenance is not examination, and the person maintaining equipment lacks the independence to examine it.
- □Setting no PUWER interval at all, because none is written in the regulations. An inspector will ask what your interval is based on.
- □Missing lifting accessories. Slings, shackles and forklift attachments are on 6 months even when the machine they serve is on 12.
- □Buying second-hand plant and assuming compliance came with it. The duty to make it safe is yours as the user.
Why one competent person for both makes sense
If your lifting equipment falls under both regimes, having two organisations attend separately means two visits, two sets of downtime, two invoices and two sets of paperwork with dates that drift apart from each other.
Covering LOLER, PUWER, height safety equipment and air receivers in a single attendance keeps the machine out of service once, aligns every renewal date, and gives you one document set to hand an auditor. That is the whole argument for a competent person who covers all four regimes rather than a specialist in each.
Still not sure?
Describe your equipment and we will tell you what applies