LOLER record keeping: how long, what format, and what HSE asks for

Quick answer. Under Regulation 11 of LOLER 1998, a report of thorough examination must be kept available for inspection until the next report is made, and in any case for at least 2 years. The EC declaration of conformity for new equipment must be kept for as long as the employer operates the equipment. Reports for lifting accessories must be kept for 2 years. Paper and digital records are both acceptable, provided the record can be produced when an inspector asks.

Every duty holder knows lifting equipment needs a thorough examination. Far fewer can say, with confidence, exactly which documents they must hold, for how long, and where. Regulation 11 is short, but the retention rules differ by record type, and the practical HSE expectation goes beyond the legal minimum.

What Regulation 11 actually requires

Regulation 11 splits retention by the kind of examination that produced the record:

• EC declaration of conformity (new equipment): keep for as long as you operate the equipment.
• First thorough examination after installation or assembly at a new location: keep until you stop using the equipment at that place.
• Periodic thorough examination reports (the 6-month and 12-month cycle): keep until the next report is made, and in any case for at least 2 years.
• Reports on lifting accessories (slings, chains, shackles, eyebolts): keep for 2 years after the report is made.
• Inspection records made between thorough examinations under Regulation 9(3): keep until the next record is made.

The report must be kept available for inspection at the premises where the equipment is used. For equipment that travels between sites, the report can be kept at the employer's registered office, but it must be retrievable when asked for.

The gap between the legal minimum and the practical expectation

Two years is the statutory floor, not the standard anyone senior actually works to:

• Incident investigation reaches back further than 2 years. If a hoist fails and injures someone, the investigation wants the full examination history of that asset, not the last two reports.
• Insurers commonly expect examination history for the life of the asset when settling claims involving lifting equipment.
• Civil claims can arrive years after the event. Limitation periods for personal injury run 3 years from the date of knowledge, and defending a claim without the records from the relevant period is an uphill task.

The pragmatic policy most competent persons recommend: keep every report for the life of the asset plus 3 years. Storage is cheap; a missing report at the wrong moment is not.

Paper or digital

LOLER does not prescribe a format. The ACOP L113 accepts records kept in any form, provided they are secure against loss and unauthorised alteration and can be produced when required.

In practice the format question is really a retrieval question. An HSE inspector or an insurer asking "show me the last thorough examination for this hoist" is testing whether your system works. A digital record tied to the asset's QR tag answers in seconds. A filing cabinet at head office answers in days, and sometimes not at all: paper reports drift away from the assets they describe as equipment moves between sites.

One caution on digital records: the report must preserve the competent person's identification and the date it was made. A scanned PDF of the signed report satisfies this. A retyped spreadsheet row does not, because the original evidence of who examined what, and when, is gone.

What an HSE inspector asks to see

Visits vary, but the records conversation is predictable. Expect requests for:

1. The report of thorough examination for specific equipment the inspector has seen in use, checked against the 13 fields Schedule 1 requires.
2. Evidence the examination interval is being met: last report date plus the stated next-examination date, compared against today.
3. The written scheme of examination, if intervals differ from the 6-month and 12-month defaults. See written schemes explained.
4. Defect close-out: where a report lists a defect, evidence of what was done about it and when.
5. The trail for accessories: slings and chains are where paper systems fail most, because accessories are numerous, mobile, and individually cheap.

An inspector who gets fast, complete answers to the first two questions usually shortens the rest of the conversation. Slow or partial answers extend it.

Common failure patterns

• Records kept by the examination company, not the duty holder. The duty to keep the report available sits with you, not your inspection contractor. If they hold everything and the relationship ends, so does your evidence.
• Reports filed by date, not by asset. Retrieval by asset is what every real request looks like.
• Accessories with no individual identity. A report covering "12 chain slings" proves nothing about the sling in an inspector's hand. Individual IDs, tagged on the accessory, close the gap.
• The 2-year purge. Some organisations delete at exactly 2 years to a retention policy written for office documents. Legal, and regrettable at the first incident.

Where Hovermarks fits

Hovermarks stores every report of thorough examination against the QR-tagged asset it describes, with the retention clock, next-due date, and defect close-out held on the same record. The answer to "show me the last examination for this hoist" is a scan. The LOLER solution page shows the workflow, and the LOLER inspection guide collects everything we have written on the regulations in one place.