Writing the practical inspection report for a steel fabrication workshop

Rank by the product of likelihood and severity, modified by how soon harm can occur. The test is not which finding is legally most serious in the abstract, but which could injure someone before the manager gets round to it.

1. Angle grinder with the guard removed, used by an apprentice, no eye protection. Severity is high - a burst wheel or ejected fragment causes permanent eye injury or laceration - and likelihood is high because the hazard is present every second of use. Legal anchors: PUWER requires guarding and adequate training and supervision; the PPE at Work Regulations require eye protection. Action: stop the task immediately, quarantine the grinder until a guard is fitted, and address why an apprentice was unsupervised at that machine.

2. Acetylene and oxygen cylinders unchained together beside a walkway. Severity is catastrophic - oxygen enrichment makes any fire intense, and an uncoupled cylinder is a missile. Likelihood is moderate but the consequence is disproportionate. Anchors: DSEAR and the flammable gas storage guidance require segregation and restraint. Action: separate, restrain upright, sign, and remove ignition sources.

3. Overhead crane with no thorough examination for over two years. Severity is fatal if a lifting accessory or brake fails over a person. The absence of records means the crane's condition is unknown, not that it is sound. Anchor: LOLER requires thorough examination at intervals (commonly 12 months for general lifting equipment, 6 months where lifting people). Action: take it out of service until examined; do not accept 'it looks fine'.

4. Damaged 110 V cable taped across a walkway. Taping a damaged sheath is not a repair; it hides damage from inspection and creates an electric shock and fire risk, plus a trip risk. Anchors: Electricity at Work Regulations - maintain so far as reasonably practicable. Action: remove from use, replace, reroute overhead or protect.

Deferred but scheduled: welding fume extraction, which is a serious carcinogen risk with a long latency, and the hot water, which is a welfare breach. Deferring is not dismissing - both go in the report with dates and owners.

Structure

1. Title, date, author, scope and method - what was inspected, over what period, against what standard, and the limits of the inspection.
2. Summary of principal findings - half a page, four findings, each with a risk rating; the MD should be able to act on this page alone.
3. Findings in detail - for each: description of what was observed, the harm that could result, the risk rating (likelihood x severity, with the scale stated), the legal requirement breached, and the recommended action with an owner and a timescale.
4. Justification - set out under three headings:
   • Moral: a preventable eye injury or a dropped load injures a real person and their family; the apprentice is 17.
   • Legal: specific breaches (PUWER, LOLER, DSEAR, Electricity at Work, PPE), the two previous prohibition notices as evidence of a pattern, and the realistic enforcement consequences - prohibition notice, improvement notice, prosecution, and chargeable time under the Fee for Intervention for material breaches.
   • Financial: uninsured losses, insurance premium impact, civil claims, lost production from a shutdown, and the cost of the fix compared with the cost of an incident.
5. Action plan table - action, risk addressed, responsible person, target date, interim control until completion.
6. Conclusions and request - the decisions you are asking for, stated explicitly.
7. Appendices - photographs, notes, references.

Judgement: the report is a decision document, not an inventory. Every finding should end in an action with a name and a date, and immediate risks should have already been dealt with before the report is written, with that recorded.

Deal with the immediate risk before the meeting. The grinder comes out of use, the cylinders are separated and chained, and the crane is taken out of service - each with a written note to the manager the same day. These are defensible unilateral actions on imminent risk and they frame the conversation: the shop cannot simply carry on while the report waits. Tell him plainly, in person, before the email lands.

Then meet face to face, and bring solutions. Managers who receive a list feel blamed and delay. Open with the two findings that threaten production directly - a crane out of service and a grinder down - because that is the language of a busy manager. Then present the fix, the cost and the timescale for each, so the report reads as a route back to full output rather than an accusation. Offer to brief the supervisors together.

Use the evidence of enforcement, not rhetoric. Two prohibition notices in four years mean this organisation is known to the regulator. A third visit with an unguarded grinder in use by an apprentice could close the bay and cost far more than the repairs. Material breaches also attract chargeable inspection time.

Address culture, because that is what produced the findings. An apprentice unsupervised on an unguarded grinder, a duct taped to a column and a taped cable all indicate that making do is normalised and that nobody feels able to stop the job. Recommend practical steps: a short daily supervisor walk-round with a checklist, a no-blame reporting route, a clear rule that guards and extraction are checked at start-up, and visible management response to the first reports. Ask him to close the loop by telling staff what changed.

Follow up in writing, with dates, and re-inspect. Persistence, backed by a written record, is what converts a report into action.