Procedure for The Inspection & Testing of
Portable Electrical Appliances
Approved By
Date Approved
Policy Owner
Version
Issued
Harris Cooper
04/11/10
Allan Petrie
1.0
12/11/10
Effective Date
Status
Impact Assessed
Review Date
Issued to:
15/11/10
Live
Yes
Nov 2011
RGU
Management
Board
Inspection and Testing of Portable Electrical Appliances
Aims/Objectives
The Robert Gordon University will ensure, so far as is reasonably
practicable, that all electrical equipment that is provided for use within the
work environment is free from risk of causing electrical shock or fire.
To ensure compliance with the relevant legislation
To ensure that responsibilities for testing portable appliances are
unambiguous
To prevent electric shock or burn to operators
To prevent fires of an electrical origin
Responsibilities
Heads of Schools/Departments are responsible for ensuring that all
portable electrical equipment provided by the School/Department is
inspected and tested on a regular basis to ensure that no person is put at
risk from the use of such equipment.
Heads of Schools/Departments are responsible for ensuring that
appropriate records of all electrical equipment are maintained to show
what equipment has been inspected/tested and that these records are
available when necessary.
Heads of Schools/Departments are responsible for ensuring that portable
electrical equipment is inspected/tested on a frequency that takes into
consideration the risks arising from the use of the electrical equipment
and the environment in which it is operated.
All staff and students are responsible for ensuring that they comply with
electrical safety procedures.
Guidance
Introduction
Nearly a quarter of all electrical incidents reported to the Health and
Safety Executive (HSE) involve portable electrical equipment with a major
cause of these incidents being due to the failure to maintain the
equipment. However, the HSE estimate that 95% of faults with electrical
equipment can be found by just visually inspecting the equipment.
Definitions
Portable (or transportable) electrical equipment
This includes any electrical item which may be moved from place to place
between periods of use and is connected to a mains electrical supply via a
flexible lead and plug and socket arrangement. As a result, this covers a
wide range of electrical appliances from a printer or computer, to white
domestic
goods
(including
kettles)
to
sophisticated
electronic
instrumentation.
User Check
This is undertaken by the operator of the equipment and is a visual
inspection of the equipment and cabling to;
identify obvious damage to the cable or plug
the adequacy of cable joints
the appropriateness of the equipment for the working environment
any damage to the external parts of the equipment
any evidence of overheating
Formal Visual Inspection
This is undertaken by a competent person within the School or
Department and consists of;
removing the plug cover (where possible)
checking the fuse is appropriate
the cord grip is effective
all cable terminations are secure and correct.
Combined Inspection and Testing
Undertaken by a competent person within the School or Department and
consists of;
ensuring the correct polarity of the cables
the correct rating of fuse
effective termination of cables
testing the earth integrity and insulation integrity.
Legal Duties
Legal duties exist on the manufacturers and suppliers of portable electrical
equipment to ensure the initial safety of new electrical equipment.
The ongoing safety of portable electrical equipment rests with the
employer and is implicit in Regulation 4(2) of the Electricity at Work
Regulations:
‘as may be necessary to prevent danger, all (electrical) systems shall be
maintained so as to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, such
danger’.
In order to comply with this Regulation, guidance from the Health and
Safety Executive advises an ongoing programme of ‘formal visual
inspection’ and ‘formal visual inspection and safety testing’.
Guidance on Competency for Academic Schools
Within Schools, persons who carry out portable appliance testing must
have appropriate knowledge, training and information to enable them
undertake the inspection/testing safely. It would be expected that the
majority of technical staff will be competent to undertake both User
Checks and Formal Visual Inspections without further formal training.
The degree of competence required for undertaking a Combined
Inspection and Test will be greater than that required for conducting a
User Check or Formal Visual Inspection.
It should be noted that it is the School’s responsibility to ensure that the
persons conducting the test are competent and training and supervision
should be provided as required.
Inspection and testing of portable electrical equipment is not any more
technically complex than many of the other activities which technicians
carry out in laboratories and it would be expected that Schools make their
own arrangements for carrying out inspection and testing in offices,
laboratories and workshops. This does not prevent Schools arranging for a
competent external contractor to undertake the testing, but this should be
arranged through the Estates and Property Services to ensure the
competency of the contractor.
Guidance on Competency for Support Departments
For Departments and those Schools without technical support the
Combined Inspection and Testing of portable electrical equipment should
be arranged through the Estates and Property Services who will either
undertake the testing internally or arrange for a competent contractor to
do the test. Note that there may be a charge for testing undertaken
internally. The Head of Department still retains responsibility for ensuring
that portable electrical equipment is tested appropriately.
However, it is expected that staff within Departments would be competent
to undertake User Checks. Competencies are defined in Appendix B.
Frequency of testing/inspection
There is no definitive guidance on the frequency of testing portable
electrical equipment and this should be based on an assessment of the
risk. When assessing the risks, the following should be considered:
The type of the equipment being used;
The environment in which the equipment is being used; and
The frequency with which the equipment is being used
In order to effectively control risks from portable electrical equipment an
appropriate schedule should be developed to review new and existing
pieces of portable electrical equipment. In setting up such a schedule,
Appendix A highlights suggested initial intervals between both Formal
Visual Inspections and Combined Inspections and Tests. These intervals
can be used as a starting point but each situation must be considered
individually according to the volume and frequency of use of the
equipment.
In addition to the recommended frequencies for inspections and testing
outlined in Appendix A, it is important to highlight that
Schools/Departments should routinely undertake inspections of their areas
to ensure that electrical items that have been introduced since the last
formal inspection or test are detected and incorporated into the process.
This should be delegated to those persons who are in charge of these
areas.
Testing & Test Records
Lasting safety of portable electrical equipment can only be achieved
through routine and effective testing and maintenance. Testing will
determine if a piece of equipment is safe to use or not. Routine inspection
and testing should be seen as part of an overall strategy for ensuring that
work equipment is maintained in a safe condition.
Effective testing can be achieved by a combination of:
Checks by users i.e. checking for damage to plug, cables & external
casing of equipment, evidence of overheating
Formal visual inspection by a person trained and appointed to
conduct them i.e. removal of plug cover, checking the fuse, cord
grip, signs of internal damage within the plug
Combined inspection and test i.e. checking the correct fusing, earth
integrity and insulation integrity
Appendix B highlights the checks that are required and the persons to
undertake these checks. Each School/Department must have a system in
place where persons who undertake user checks can record and report
any faults that they find in order that faulty equipment can be recorded
and either repaired or disposed of.
Any item which has failed should not be allowed back into service
until it has been repaired by a suitably competent person. It
should be clearly labelled as faulty and taken out of service. The
equipment should then be stored in a secure location until
repaired or disposed of. If the item is privately owned then it must
be removed from RGU property.
Note that any item that has been repaired must be re-inspected, and
tested if appropriate, before being re-instated. A record should be kept of
the nature of the repair, the repairer, the date, etc.
There is no formal requirement within the Electricity at Work Regulations
to keep testing records for portable electrical equipment, there are a
number of benefits to do so, including;
Management tool for monitoring and reviewing the testing scheme;
Enables managers to demonstrate that testing does take place;
and,
Useful as an inventory of equipment
Audit trail for auditors and incident investigators
Therefore, records of Combined Inspection and Tests must be retained.
Records do not have to be based on a paper system and can be stored
electronically. However, the records should be in a system which allows
external persons to view and confirm that appropriate regular testing is
being undertaken. In addition, the system used to act as an inventory of
equipment must be updated when new items of electrical equipment are
purchased in order that these can be incorporated into the testing regime.
Use of Personal Equipment on Campus
Heads of Schools/Departments may authorise staff/student to bring
electrical equipment into the School/Department, but this equipment must
be subjected to the testing protocols as outlined above.
Guidance for equipment leased to Schools/Departments
Leased equipment is the responsibility of the School/Department which
leases the equipment. Therefore the School/Department will need to
establish and agree with the leaser as to who is responsible to undertake
the appropriate visual inspections and tests.
IT equipment
IT equipment is subject to the controls outlined within this Procedure and
requires to be tested at appropriate intervals. The responsibility for testing
IT equipment within Schools and Departments lies with the
School/Department in question. For those areas which are deemed to be
‘open-access’ computer suites then the responsibility for testing should be
agreed between ITS and those Schools that have ownership of the rooms.
Competent persons undertaking testing of IT equipment need to know
what tests are relevant for the equipment being tested and if any
alternative tests are required.
Student Residencies
The Student Accommodation Services will be responsible for ensuring that
all electrical equipment supplied by the University for use by students
within residencies is tested for electrical safety.
Residents are responsible for ensuring that electrical equipment owned by
them and used within the residencies is safe and appropriate for that
environment. The Student Accommodation Services reserve the right to
remove any electrical equipment which is deemed to be unsafe or
unsuitable.
Fixed wiring
The Estates and Property Services are responsible for the routine
inspection, testing and ongoing maintenance of fixed wiring installations in
all University buildings. This covers inspection and testing up to the final
means of isolation and does not cover any equipment supplied from the
plug socket.
Appendix A
Frequency of inspection and combined inspection and testing
Suggested Initial Testing Intervals
Type of Equipment
Battery Operated
(< 20V)
Extra Low Voltage
(< 50V AC)
User
Checks for
obvious
damage
Formal Visual
Inspection
Combined
Inspection & Test
No
No
No
No
No
No
Equipment Hire
No
Light Industrial
Equipment
Yes, at
regular
intervals
Before
Issue/After
Return
Before Initial
Use, Then 6
Monthly
Daily
Weekly
6 Months to
1 Year
No
2 to 4 Years
None If Double
Insulated –
Otherwise up to 5
Years
No
2 to 3 Years
No
Yes, at
regular
intervals
6 Months to
1 Year
No
Yes, at
regular
intervals
6 Months to
1 Year
1 to 2 years
Yes, at
regular
intervals
1 Year
2 Years
Heavy Industrial
Equipment/high
risk of damage
Office IT
Equipment
(computers,
printers, fax
machines, etc)
Double Insulated
Equipment, not
Hand Held (fans,
table lamps, etc)
Hand Held Double
Insulated
Equipment (floor
cleaners, kitchen
equipment, irons,
etc)
Earthed (Class 1)
equipment
(kettles, some
floor cleaners)
Cables & plugs,
extension leads
Before Issue
6 Months to
1 Year
Appendix B
Testing Schedule
Test
Conducted By
User Checks
Equipment User
Formal Visual
Inspection
Competent Person
Within
School/Department
or via Estates and
Property Services
Combined
Inspection &
Tests
Competent Person
Within
School/Department
or via Estates and
Property Services
(a)
(b)
Test To Include
Check damage on
cable sheath,
damage to plug,
inadequate joints i.e.
taped joints,
equipment unsuited
to environment,
damage to
equipment casing,
evidence of
overheating
Remove plug cover
and check fuse,
check cord grip is
effective, check cable
termination secure &
correct
Check correct
polarity of supply
cables, correct fusing
and effective
termination of the
cables, check
equipment suitable
for environment,
check both earth and
insulation integrity
Competency
Expected
None, apart
from critically
examining
the
equipment
prior to use
Competent
person
nominated by
Head of
School or
Deputy (a)
Competent
person
trained to an
appropriate
level (b)
The competent person will have sufficient information and knowledge of what
to look for and what is acceptable. To avoid danger, the competent person
should know when the limit of their knowledge and experience has been
reached. Please view the accompanying guidance document for further
information.
It is expected that the competent person will have undertaken training since
the results from testing may require interpretation and an appropriate level of
electrical knowledge will be required. Training can include the City & Guilds
Level 3 Certificate for the In-Service Inspection and Testing of Electrical
Equipment or a course aligned to the IET Code of Practice for In-Service
Inspection & Testing