Lifting Operations Audit

A lifting operations audit is an independent, systematic assessment of how lifting activities are being planned, managed and carried out on a site. It looks at the whole lifting management system — the documentation, the competence of the people involved, the condition and management of the equipment, and what is actually happening on the ground as opposed to what the paperwork says should be happening.

The purpose is to give the principal contractor or client an objective picture of the standard of lifting on their project. A good audit is not a pass-or-fail exercise. It is a diagnostic that says what is being done well, where the gaps are, and what needs correcting — with the findings prioritised so the serious items are unmistakable.

Audit versus LOLER thorough examination — they are not the same thing

This is the single most common confusion in this area, and it is worth being precise about because contractors regularly commission one when their client wanted the other.

A LOLER thorough examination is a statutory engineering inspection of a specific piece of lifting equipment, carried out by a competent examiner under LOLER Regulation 9, at intervals of 6 or 12 months depending on what the equipment does. It produces a report on the condition of that machine or accessory. It says nothing whatsoever about whether your lifts are being planned properly.

A lifting operations audit examines the management system — lift plans, supervision, competence, briefings, exclusion zones, records, and observed practice. It has no statutory interval; the frequency is driven by risk and by contract. Neither one substitutes for the other. A site can have a perfect set of thorough examination reports and still be planning its lifts badly, and that combination is exactly what an audit is designed to surface. See our guide to LOLER thorough examinations for the equipment side.

What gets checked

Documentation is the starting point. The auditor reviews the lift plans in place for the operations actually happening on site — not just crane lifts, but excavator lifting, telehandler crane duties and lorry loader deliveries, which are the operations most often found running with no plan at all. Each plan is checked for whether it is genuinely site-specific rather than a generic document recycled from a previous job, and whether it matches the conditions, loads and equipment actually present.

Beyond the plans: thorough examination reports for every item of lifting equipment and accessory on site, and whether any have expired. Competence evidence for the Appointed Person, lift supervisors, slinger-signallers and operators, and whether the card levels held actually match the lifts being carried out. The lifting accessory register, colour coding and quarantine arrangements. Briefing records. Then the walkround — exclusion zones as they exist rather than as drawn, crane and plant set-up, outrigger and mat arrangements, ground conditions, communication in practice, and edge protection where lifting and work at height overlap.

What comes up again and again

After enough of these, the failure patterns repeat. Generic lift plans presented as site-specific. Plans that were technically correct when written but no longer describe what is happening, because the machine changed, the load changed, or the crane moved. Thorough examination certificates that have quietly expired on accessories rather than on the crane itself, because the accessories are the things nobody owns. Exclusion zones marked out at the start of the week and eroded by Thursday. Subcontractors lifting under the principal contractor's plan without ever having been briefed on it. And the most common of all: lifting operations that everybody on site regards as too routine to need a plan, which is not a judgement LOLER allows anyone to make.

How to prepare

Have the paperwork in one place before the auditor arrives — lift plans, thorough examination reports, the accessory register, competence cards and briefing records. Not because a tidy file scores points, but because time spent hunting for documents is time not spent on site, and the walkround is where the value is. Tell your subcontractors the audit is happening. Do not stage-manage the site: an audit of a site pretending to be something it is not tells you nothing you can use, and experienced auditors can tell.

Findings are reported with a priority rating so you can act on the serious items immediately. Anything posing imminent risk gets raised with you on the day rather than held back for the written report — that is not a courtesy, it is the point.

Audit or lift plan check — which do you need?

If the question is "is this specific lift plan any good?", that is lift plan checking — a document-level review of one submission, usually turned round in 24 to 48 hours. If the question is "is lifting being managed properly on this project?", that is an audit — a site-level assessment of the whole system. Principal contractors reviewing subcontractor submissions want the first. Clients and CDM duty holders seeking assurance want the second. Plenty of projects need both, on different cycles.