PAT Testing for Employers: The Duties That Remain Yours

You booked the testing. Someone came, stickers appeared, an invoice followed, and the folder went in the cabinet. Job done? Not quite. There's a gap between buying a service and discharging a duty, and it's the gap that surprises employers when something goes wrong. Here's what actually sits with you, in plain terms.

What the law says, and how little it says about testing

The duty is short. Under the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, systems must be maintained so as to prevent danger, so far as is reasonably practicable. That's it. No mention of PAT testing, no interval, no sticker, no certificate. Everything else you've been told is someone's interpretation of how to meet that duty, and some of those interpretations are selling you something.

Which cuts both ways. You can't point at a folder and say the law is satisfied, because the law asked for maintenance, not paperwork. But equally, nobody can tell you a specific test frequency is legally mandated, because it isn't.

The three things you still need to oversee

You can appoint a competent contractor to test equipment and help assess the risks. As the employer, you still need to make sure the resulting arrangements are suitable, acted upon and kept under review.

Making sure the inventory is complete. Your contractor tests what you present. If the equipment in the back room isn't on your register, it isn't tested, and that's your gap, not theirs. Same for the machine that arrived last month and the appliance a member of staff brought in from home.

Making sure the intervals reflect risk. Testing frequency comes from your risk assessment, not from your supplier's diary. A hire company's power tools and a wall-mounted display in a quiet office are not the same risk, and a schedule that treats them identically is a schedule nobody thought about.

Acting on what comes back. This is the one that catches people. A failed item that stays in use after the report has been received creates a foreseeable and documented risk. Testing only protects people when faults are acted upon promptly.

The user checks that do most of the work

Here's the admission that costs us money to make. The single most valuable electrical safety activity in your workplace isn't the annual visit, it's your staff looking at leads and plugs before they use them. The HSE's guidance is explicit that most electrical safety defects can be found by visual examination. A cracked plug, a lead pulled out of its grip, scorching round a socket: your team can spot all of that on any given Tuesday, and we can only spot it on the day we're there.

So brief your people, make it normal to report a damaged lead, and make it easy to take something out of service without asking three managers. That costs nothing and catches more than we do.

The two situations that catch employers out

The first is shared premises. If you rent a floor in a building, or share a unit, the question of who owns which appliance gets vague fast. The kitchen everyone uses. The printer in the shared lobby. The heater that was there when you moved in. Vague ownership can mean nobody checks it. Responsibility depends on who owns or controls the equipment and premises, and duties may be shared. Record the arrangement with your landlord, managing agent or neighbour so each item has a named owner.

The second is homeworking. If you supply equipment to someone working from home, it's still your equipment being used for your work. You don't have a right to march into their house with a tester, and you do have a duty. A workable arrangement may include checking equipment when it is issued, briefing the homeworker on visual checks and arranging inspection or testing at risk-based intervals. The precise arrangement should reflect the equipment and how it is used.

What good looks like on paper

An itemised register rather than a pass sheet, so you know what exists and where. A written note of why your intervals are what they are, tied to how the equipment is actually used. A record of failures and what happened to them. And a named person who owns it, because a duty that belongs to everyone belongs to nobody.

If you want the practical detail on how testing runs on site, our PAT testing page covers it, and our offices page sets out how we work around a normal working day.

Get in touch

Want a schedule you could defend, rather than a date in the calendar? Get in touch and we'll build one around how your equipment is actually used.