There is no 2 metre rule, and there is a 2 metre rule
Both are true, and that is why this one is misunderstood so widely.
Regulation 2 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 defines work at height as work in any place, including a place at or below ground level, where a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury. There is no minimum height in that definition. None. A metre off a hop-up is work at height. So is standing at the edge of an open excavation.
The 2 metres people are remembering is genuinely in the regulations, but it governs something else entirely. Regulation 12(4) says a working platform used for construction work, and from which a person could fall 2 metres or more, is not used in any position unless it has been inspected in that position within the previous 7 days.
So the figure decides whether the seven day inspection duty bites. It does not decide whether the work is work at height. People read the number, attach it to the wrong duty, and conclude a job under 2 metres is outside the regulations. It is not, and that misunderstanding is doing real damage: low falls are not gentle falls.
The seven days is not the only clock
The seven day interval is the one everybody knows and it is the less important half.
Regulation 12(3)(b) requires an inspection each time exceptional circumstances liable to jeopardise the safety of the equipment have occurred. That is a separate duty and it does not wait for day seven.
A storm on Tuesday night does not care that the last inspection was Monday. Nor does a telehandler catching a standard, a lift being added, a tower being repositioned, or an excavation appearing next to the base. Any of those and the scaffold needs looking at before anybody goes back on it.
This is where most real-world failures sit. The seven day tags are current, the paperwork is in order, and the thing that actually changed the scaffold happened on day three and nobody re-inspected.
Eight particulars, not four
Schedule 7 sets out what an inspection report has to contain, and most templates carry about half of them.
The four everybody includes are the location, the description, the date and time, and who did it. The four that get left off are the name and address of the person the inspection was carried out for, any matter identified that could give rise to a risk, the action taken as a result, and any further action considered necessary.
Those last three are the ones that make the report worth anything. A report saying only that a scaffold was inspected records an event. A report saying two couplers were finger tight, they were torqued, and lift two should be re-checked next time records an inspection.
Blank is not the same as nothing found. If nothing was found, write that down, because an empty box reads as an unanswered question to anybody looking at it afterwards.
The 24 hours nobody quotes
Regulation 12(7) requires the report to be prepared before the end of the working period in which the inspection was completed, and a copy provided to the person it was carried out for within 24 hours.
That deadline appears on almost no scaffold inspection template anywhere, and it is the one a principal contractor can hold you to, because it is specific and dated.
Then regulation 12(8): kept at the site until the construction work is completed, and after that at an office for three months. Note where the clock starts. It is when the workfinishes, not when the inspection was done, so a report from the first week of a nine month job is kept for the whole job and three months beyond it.
Hired scaffold is still your problem
Regulation 12(5) is short and widely ignored. Work equipment arriving from somebody else's undertaking must be accompanied by physical evidence that the last required inspection has been carried out.
A tag on the leg is not physical evidence if there is no report behind it. A verbal assurance from the hire desk certainly is not. And the duty to have that evidence sits with whoever is using the equipment, not with the company that dropped it off.
Your name goes on this one personally
Schedule 7 wants the name and position of the person making the report, so an inspection record is one individual saying a scaffold was fit to use on a particular morning. It is also the first document anybody asks for if that scaffold later fails, which is a reason to know exactly where it was written and how many copies of it exist.
This one is built and turned into a PDF on your own machine. There is no account, no email address, and the site, the client and your own name never leave the device you typed them on.
Common questions
Is there a 2 metre rule for working at height?
Not for what counts as work at height, no. Regulation 2 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 defines it as work in any place, including at or below ground level, where a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury. There is no minimum height in it at all. The 2 metre figure people are remembering is real, but it belongs to a different duty: regulation 12(4) applies the seven day platform inspection requirement to construction platforms from which someone could fall 2 metres or more. Attaching that figure to the wrong duty is why people believe a job under 2 metres is outside the regulations.
How often does a scaffold have to be inspected?
Before it is used in any position, and then within every 7 days while it stays in that position, for a construction platform with a potential fall of 2 metres or more. That is regulation 12(4). Separately, regulation 12(3)(b) requires an inspection every time exceptional circumstances liable to jeopardise its safety have occurred, which does not wait for day seven: high winds, an alteration, being struck, being moved, or the ground conditions changing all restart it.
What has to be on the inspection report?
Schedule 7 lists eight particulars: who the inspection was for and their address, the location of the equipment, a description of it, the date and time, any matter identified that could give rise to a risk, the action taken as a result, any further action considered necessary, and the name and position of the person making the report. Most templates carry four or five of them.
When does the report have to be handed over?
Regulation 12(7) requires it to be prepared before the end of the working period in which the inspection was completed, and a copy provided to the person it was carried out for within 24 hours. Almost no scaffold inspection template mentions the 24 hours, and it is the part a principal contractor can actually hold somebody to.
How long do I keep it?
Regulation 12(8): at the site where the inspection was carried out until the construction work is completed, and after that at an office for 3 months. Note that the clock starts when the WORK finishes, not when the inspection was done, so a report from week one of a nine month job is kept for the whole job plus three months.
The scaffold is hired. Is it the hire company's problem?
No. Regulation 12(5) says work equipment arriving from somebody else's undertaking must be accompanied by physical evidence that the last required inspection has been carried out. A sticker on the leg with no report behind it is not physical evidence, and the duty to have that evidence sits with whoever is using the equipment.
Who is allowed to do the inspection?
A competent person, meaning somebody with the training, knowledge and experience to spot what is wrong with that particular kind of equipment. For a tube and fitting scaffold that generally means a scaffolder with the appropriate card; for a mobile tower it may be somebody trained to the tower manufacturer's system. It is about the equipment in front of them, not a general safety qualification.