Scaffold Inspection

Scaffold inspections: what the law requires, and what we actually do

A scaffold is only as safe as its last inspection. The law sets out when a scaffold must be inspected, who can do it and what the report has to say, and on most sites it is the one piece of scaffolding paperwork that gets checked when something goes wrong. We inspect every scaffold we erect, and we inspect and report on scaffolds put up by other contractors, across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire and, for commercial work, Gloucestershire.

This page covers the whole subject: the regulations, the different kinds of inspection, who is responsible on a domestic job and on a commercial one (see our domestic and commercial scaffolding pages for how those jobs run), what a report has to contain, the defects we find most often, what happens when a scaffold fails, and what inspections cost.

The law: Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12

Scaffold inspection in Great Britain is governed by regulation 12 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005, with the content of the report set out in Schedule 7. The regulation is short, and every part of it matters.

• Inspected after it is put up. Where the safety of work equipment depends on how it has been installed or assembled, it must not be used in that position until it has been inspected there. For a scaffold, that is the handover inspection.
• Inspected at least every seven days. A working platform used for construction work, from which a person could fall 2 metres or more, must not be used unless it has been inspected in that position within the previous seven days. A mobile platform, such as a tower, must have been inspected on site within the previous seven days.
• Inspected after anything that could affect it. Equipment exposed to conditions that could cause it to deteriorate must be inspected at suitable intervals, and again after any exceptional circumstances likely to jeopardise its safety — high winds, heavy snow, flooding, a vehicle strike, or an alteration.
• A report, the same day. The person who carries out the inspection must prepare a report before the end of the working period in which it was done, and give it to the person the inspection was carried out for within 24 hours.
• Kept on site, then for three months. The report must be kept on the site until the construction work is finished, and then at an office for a further three months.
• Carried out by a competent person. The regulations define inspection as a visual or more rigorous inspection by a competent person, appropriate for safety purposes, including any testing that is appropriate.

Two points are worth drawing out. First, the seven-day rule is a maximum, not a schedule: a scaffold that has been through a storm on day three needs inspecting on day three. Second, the obligation is about use. Nobody is breaking the regulations by leaving a scaffold standing uninspected; they are breaking them the moment someone works from it.

What the inspection report must contain

Schedule 7 to the regulations lists the particulars every scaffold inspection report has to include. A tag on the scaffold is not a report. A report must record:

1. The name and address of the person for whom the inspection was carried out.
2. The location of the scaffold inspected.
3. A description of the scaffold inspected.
4. The date and time of the inspection.
5. Details of any matter identified that could give rise to a risk to anyone’s health or safety.
6. Details of any action taken as a result.
7. Details of any further action considered necessary.
8. The name and position of the person making the report.

Our reports are written to that list, on every inspection, and handed over the same day. If a scaffold passes with nothing to note, the report says so; a blank “OK” with no description, date or time does not meet the regulations and will not help you if the HSE or an insurer asks to see it.

The kinds of scaffold inspection

People say “scaffold inspection” and mean several different things. These are the ones that matter, and when each one applies.

Handover inspection and the handover certificate

The handover is the scaffolding contractor’s sign-off that the scaffold is complete and fit for the use it was designed for. A proper handover certificate states who the scaffold is handed to, what it is for, its duty class under BS EN 12811-1 (and so the load each bay can carry), the number of boarded lifts that can be loaded at once, whether it was built to a TG20:21 compliance sheet or an engineer’s design, and any restrictions — areas not to be used, loading bays, ties that must not be removed. It is the document the user’s seven-day inspections are measured against.

Daily pre-use checks

Not a statutory inspection and not a replacement for one, but good practice: before each shift, whoever is working from the scaffold looks at the tag, the guardrails, the boards and the access. Two minutes, and it catches the things that happen between inspections — a board lifted by another trade, a guardrail taken out for a delivery and not put back.

Independent and third-party inspections

This is where most of our inspection enquiries come from. The common situations:

• The original scaffolder has gone. A builder has gone bust, a contractor has walked off site, or the scaffold has simply outlived the firm that put it up. Someone needs to know if it is safe before anyone works from it again.
• You are taking over a site. A new principal contractor inherits a scaffold and its paperwork, and needs to satisfy itself it is what the handover says it is.
• An insurer, lender or surveyor wants a report. On a claim, a property sale with a scaffold standing, or a dispute about who damaged what.
• You want an independent check. A client or project manager who wants an inspection by someone other than the contractor who built the scaffold.

If the scaffold passes, you get a full report and it goes back into use. If it does not, it is tagged out of use, the report lists exactly what is wrong, and we can put it right — or you can go back to the original contractor with a written list.

Who is responsible for inspecting a scaffold?

This is the question that causes most of the arguments, because the answer depends on who is using the scaffold and what the contract says.

• The scaffolding contractor is responsible for building the scaffold correctly and for the handover inspection. Whether it also carries out the weekly inspections depends on the contract — some scaffolders include them, some charge for them, and some hand over and leave the rest to the user.
• The employer whose people use the scaffold — the builder, the roofer, the principal contractor — must make sure it has been inspected within the last seven days before they work from it. On a site with several trades, that duty usually sits with the principal contractor under CDM 2015, which coordinates who inspects and who keeps the reports.
• On a domestic job, the homeowner is a domestic client under CDM 2015 and the client duties pass to the contractor — usually the builder or roofer. In practice that means the builder must make sure the scaffold is inspected, and the homeowner should ask who is doing it.
• Nobody else may alter the scaffold. Removing a tie, a board or a guardrail to make the work easier is the single commonest cause of a failed inspection. Only the scaffolding contractor alters a scaffold, and an alteration is followed by a fresh inspection.

Our position is simple: every scaffold we erect is inspected by us — at handover, at intervals not exceeding seven days while it is in use, and after any weather or event that could affect it — and that is included in the hire. You do not need to arrange or pay for anyone else, and the reports come to you within 24 hours. If the quotation you have from another firm does not say who does the weekly inspections, ask before you sign.

Who counts as a competent inspector?

The regulations require a “competent person” but do not list a qualification. In the scaffolding industry, competence is shown through the CISRS scheme (the Construction Industry Scaffolders Record Scheme):

• CISRS Scaffold Inspection Training Scheme (SITS), basic — for inspecting basic scaffolds: independent tied scaffolds, putlogs, birdcages and static towers built within TG20 guidance.
• CISRS SITS, advanced — for complex and designed scaffolds: temporary roofs, gantries, ramps, cantilevers, slung and drop scaffolds, shoring and falsework, and reading the design drawings they are built to.
• CISRS Scaffolder and Advanced Scaffolder cards — qualified scaffolders inspect within the range of scaffolds they are trained and experienced to build.

The practical test is whether the inspector would recognise what is wrong with this particular scaffold. A designed temporary roof needs an inspector who can read the design; a two-lift domestic scaffold does not. Our inspections are carried out by CISRS-qualified scaffolders, and complex or designed scaffolds are inspected against the design drawings.

The standards a scaffold is inspected against

• TG20:21 — the NASC technical guidance for tube-and-fitting scaffolds. A scaffold inside its scope comes with a TG20 compliance sheet, which tells the inspector the tie pattern, bracing, loading and lift heights it was built to.
• An engineer’s design — for anything outside TG20: temporary roofs, tall or heavily sheeted scaffolds, cantilevers, gantries, loading towers. The inspector checks the scaffold against the drawing.
• BS EN 12811-1 — the duty classes. An inspection checks not just the structure but the load on it: a class 2 inspection scaffold stacked with bricks is overloaded, however well built.
• SG4 — NASC guidance on preventing falls during erection, alteration and dismantling.
• CDM 2015 — which governs who coordinates inspections on a construction project and where the reports sit in the health and safety file.

What a scaffold inspector actually checks

An inspection works from the ground up and from the paperwork outwards. On every inspection we look at:

• The base. Base plates and sole boards present and sound; no settlement, washout or excavation near the standards; the ground not softened by rain.
• Standards, ledgers and transoms. Vertical, connected, undamaged; joints staggered; fittings tight.
• Bracing. Facade and ledger bracing in place as built — bracing is often removed to get materials through and not replaced.
• Ties. Every tie in the pattern present, correctly fixed and tight. Missing ties are the most serious and most common defect.
• Platforms. Fully boarded, boards secured against wind uplift, no trip hazards, no gaps at the building line beyond what the design allows.
• Edge protection. Main guardrails, intermediate guardrails and toe boards on every working platform; brick guards where materials are stored.
• Access. Ladders tied and extending above the landing, ladder gates closed, stair towers complete.
• Loading. Materials on the platform within the duty class; loading bays used as loading bays; nothing stacked against guardrails.
• Sheeting and netting. Secure, undamaged, and not added to a scaffold that was not designed for the extra wind load.
• Public protection. Fans, gantries, hoarding, lighting at night and the highway licence conditions where the scaffold is on a footway.
• Alterations. Anything changed since the last inspection, and by whom.
• The paperwork. Handover certificate, compliance sheet or design, previous reports, and the scafftag.

The defects we find most often

On independent inspections of other contractors’ scaffolds, the same problems come up again and again. Almost none of them are faults in how the scaffold was built; they are things that happened to it afterwards.

• Ties removed by other trades — window fitters, renderers and cladders take out the ties that are in their way and do not put them back.
• Guardrails and toe boards missing — taken out for a delivery or a skip.
• Boards lifted or displaced, leaving gaps or loose boards that lift in the wind.
• Overloading — pallets of tiles or bricks on a scaffold built for light duty.
• Sheeting added without a design, turning the scaffold into a sail.
• Ground disturbed — a drain run or footing dug next to the standards.
• Out-of-date inspections — a scaffold still in use weeks after its last recorded inspection.

Scafftags: green, red and what they mean

A scafftag is the tag fixed at each access point that shows the scaffold’s status at a glance. The insert shows when it was last inspected and by whom; a green “safe for use” insert means it passed, and a red “do not use” or “incomplete” insert means nobody goes up. The tag is useful and it is not the report — it is the sign that a report exists. We tag every scaffold we erect and update the tag at every inspection. More on how we build and hand over in our scaffolding questions.

When a scaffold fails inspection

If a scaffold is not safe, it is taken out of use straight away: the tag goes to red, access is closed, and the people relying on it are told. The report records exactly what is wrong, what was done at the time and what needs doing before it goes back into use. On our own scaffolds we put it right ourselves, then re-inspect and re-tag. On a third-party scaffold we will give you the list and a price to rectify it, or you can take the report to the original contractor.

The consequences of skipping all this are real. HSE inspectors routinely check scaffold inspection records on construction sites. A material breach can bring an improvement or prohibition notice, the HSE’s Fee for Intervention — charged at £188 an hour from April 2026 for the time spent dealing with it — and, in serious cases, prosecution, where fines for health and safety offences are unlimited. An insurer faced with a claim from a scaffold with no inspection record will ask why.

Inspections after bad weather

Weather is the most common reason for an inspection outside the seven-day cycle. After a storm we check ties, boards, sheeting and netting first, because wind loads those hardest; after heavy rain, the base, because water softens ground and washes out under sole boards; after snow, the platforms and any sheeting or temporary roof, because snow is heavy and sheeting collects it. On our own scaffolds we inspect after significant weather as a matter of course, and a sheeted scaffold or temporary roof is checked before the storm as well as after.

Tower scaffolds

Mobile aluminium towers are covered by the same regulation. A tower must be inspected after it is assembled and before it is used, and on construction work it must have been inspected on site within the previous seven days. The PASMA scheme covers tower assembly and inspection training. Towers are moved more than any other scaffold, and every move is a chance for a missing brace, an unlocked castor or an outrigger left off.

How much does a scaffold inspection cost?

On our own scaffolds, nothing extra. The handover inspection, the seven-day inspections, post-weather inspections and the reports are all included in the hire for as long as the scaffold is up.

On someone else’s scaffold, an independent inspection is priced per visit or as a weekly arrangement, and the figure depends on:

• Size and complexity — a two-lift house scaffold takes a fraction of the time of a designed commercial scaffold or a temporary roof.
• Paperwork — if there is no handover certificate, compliance sheet or design, the first inspection has to establish what the scaffold is before it can say whether it is safe.
• One-off or weekly — a weekly arrangement on the same scaffold costs less per visit than a single call-out.
• Number of scaffolds on the site — several on one site is one trip.
• Location — travel from Enslow, near Kidlington.

As a guide, independent inspections across the UK market generally run from under £100 a visit for a single domestic scaffold to several hundred pounds for a large or complex site. Tell us what is there and we will give you a fixed price per inspection, in writing, before we visit. Any remedial work is quoted separately and only done with your agreement.

Where we carry out scaffold inspections

We inspect our own scaffolds wherever we work, and carry out independent inspections across:

• Oxfordshire — Oxford, Bicester, Kidlington, Witney, Banbury, Abingdon, Didcot, Thame and the villages.
• Buckinghamshire — Aylesbury, High Wycombe, Amersham, Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross, Buckingham and Milton Keynes.
• Bedfordshire — Bedford, Luton, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard and Biggleswade.
• South Northamptonshire — Brackley, Towcester, Brixworth and the villages.
• Gloucestershire — commercial sites in Gloucester, Cheltenham, Cirencester and Stroud.

Scaffold inspection questions