A plant and equipment register answers four questions about every machine on site: what is it, is it in date, where are its records, and can it be used today? An inspector asking about a machine will want the answers in that order, and so will you after an incident.
Nothing in PUWER or LOLER says "keep a register". But both regulations require records you have to be able to find, and both set dates that someone has to watch. A register is how you watch them. This guide sets out the columns, why each one is there, and what tends to go wrong. The template at the end of the guide has the same columns.
The columns
| Column | Why it’s there |
|---|---|
| Fleet or asset number | The number painted on the machine, so the register row and the machine in front of you can be matched without doubt. |
| Description | What it is, in the words site uses: size and type. Keep the make and model in their own column. |
| Make and model | Needed to find the manufacturer’s instructions, which set the checks and service intervals. |
| Serial number | The number on the manufacturer’s plate. Inspection and thorough examination reports identify the machine by it. |
| Owned or hired | Decides who maintains it and who holds the records. Under operated hire the hire company supplies the operator, but you direct the work and plan any lift. |
| Hire company | Who to report a defect to and who must supply the inspection and examination records with the machine. |
| Hire reference | The order or contract number the hire company will ask for when you report a fault or call it off hire. |
| On hire or arrived on site | When it came on site. A machine that arrives without its records shouldn’t be put to work. |
| Off hire or left site | When it left. Keeps the register to what is actually on site and stops paying for plant nobody is using. |
| Location on site | Where to find it: area, plot or compound. |
| PUWER inspection: last | Where the equipment needs a regulation 6 inspection, the date of the last one. Leave blank for lifting equipment, which LOLER covers instead. |
| PUWER inspection: next due | The interval is set by risk: the manufacturer’s recommendations, industry advice and experience. |
| LOLER thorough examination: last | For lifting equipment and lifting accessories, the date of the last thorough examination. |
| LOLER thorough examination: next due | Take it from the report’s “latest date for the next examination”. Six months for equipment lifting people and for accessories, twelve for other lifting equipment, unless an examination scheme says otherwise. |
| Where the reports are kept | An inspector will ask to see the reports. Say where they are: the site file, the hire company’s portal, the cab. |
| Daily check sheet in use | Which pre-use check the operator uses for this machine. |
| Authorised operators | Who is trained, competent and authorised to use it. The competence card scheme is a matter for the site’s rules. |
| Open defects | Anything reported and not yet put right, with the date it was reported. |
| Status | Whether it may be used today. A stopped machine stays stopped until a competent person has made it safe. |
| Notes | Anything else: attachments, restrictions, who to call. |
A few of these need more than a line.
Fleet number and serial number. Keep both. The fleet number is what site calls the machine. The serial number is what the inspection and thorough examination reports use. A register with only one of them is how a report for one machine gets filed against another.
Description, and make and model, separately. "8 tonne tracked excavator" tells site what it is. "JCB 85Z-1" is what you need to find the manufacturer's instructions, which set the daily checks and the service intervals. Mixing the two in one column makes both harder to search.
Owned or hired, and who by. This decides who maintains the machine and who holds its records. Hired plant must come with evidence of its last PUWER inspection and, for lifting equipment, its last LOLER thorough examination: that's in the regulations (PUWER 6(4) and LOLER 9(4)), whatever the hire contract says. Under operated hire the hire company supplies the operator, but you direct the work and plan any lift.
PUWER and LOLER, last and next. Record both dates, and take the next-due date from the report itself rather than working it out. A LOLER report has to state the latest date for the next thorough examination. Leave the PUWER columns blank for lifting equipment, which LOLER covers instead. Remember that lifting accessories (chains, slings, shackles) are on six months, not twelve. Plant checks on site has the intervals.
Where the reports are kept. An inspector will ask to see the report, not the date in your register. Say where it is: the site file, the hire company's portal, a copy in the cab.
Status. Whether the machine may be used today. A machine stopped for a defect stays stopped until a competent person has made it safe, and the register should say so until then.
What goes wrong
- Dates drift. The register says the next thorough examination is in March. The machine was swapped by the hire company in January and the new one is due in two weeks. Update the row when the machine changes, not when someone notices.
- Plant arrives without its paperwork. The hire note comes, the reports don't, and the machine is put to work while someone chases them. The regulations say it shouldn't be used until they arrive.
- Off-hired plant stays on the register. Then the register stops being a list of what's on site, and nobody trusts it.
- Accessories go missing from it. Slings and shackles are lifting equipment with a six-month examination. They're easy to leave off a register built around machines.
- Defects are noted and never closed. An open defect with no date and no owner is a note, not a record. Say when it was reported, to whom and when it was put right.
The template
The template is a spreadsheet with the columns above, one row per machine or item of lifting equipment, and an example row to overwrite. Next-due dates turn amber within 30 days and red once they've passed. A second sheet explains each column.
Both are free to use, print and adapt.
When a spreadsheet stops being enough
A spreadsheet is a perfectly good register while one person keeps it and the plant list is short. It starts to fail when the dates depend on someone remembering to open it, when the daily checks are on paper in the cab and the register is in the site office, and when a defect found on Tuesday morning isn't on the register until Friday.
That's the point to put the checks where the machine is. The free plant register on this site puts one machine's daily checks on a QR sticker for a trial, and PlanOps keeps the whole fleet, with the LOLER and PUWER dates tracked and the defects chased to closure.
Sources
- The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, regulation 6 (inspection, records and hired equipment)
- The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998, regulation 9 (thorough examination) and Schedule 1 (what a report must contain)
- HSE, inspection of work equipment
- HSE, thorough examination of lifting equipment
This guide is general guidance, not legal advice. Last checked 22 October 2026.