HSE L113: Safe use of lifting equipment

HSE L113 is the Approved Code of Practice and guidance for LOLER. This guide covers who it is for, what it contains, its legal status in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and how to get a copy.

Overview

What HSE L113 is

HSE L113 is the Health and Safety Executive‘s book on how to comply with the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER). LOLER is the law. L113 sets each regulation alongside HSE’s Approved Code of Practice and guidance, which explain what a duty holder, the employer or whoever controls the equipment, should do to comply.

In short

Only the regulations printed in it are law. The code and the guidance explain how to comply.
It is free to download from HSE as a PDF.
A court can use the code in a prosecution, while the guidance is advisory.
The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) has approved it for use there.

Full title	Safe use of lifting equipment. Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998. Approved Code of Practice and guidance
Reference	L113
Current edition	Second edition, published December 2014, with amendments in 2018. It replaced the first edition of 1998.
Publisher	Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
Status	Current
Legal status	Approved Code of Practice under section 16 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, printed with guidance that is not compulsory
Northern Ireland	Approved by HSENI from 21 March 2022 for the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1999

Audience

Who L113 is for

The book is written for employers and other duty holders, and for anyone who has control of lifting equipment or of how it is used. It is also for the competent people who carry out thorough examinations.

LOLER applies wherever the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 applies, which is Great Britain and specified offshore work. Northern Ireland has its own regulations, covered below. The second edition added examples from more sectors, including health and social care.

Contents

What L113 covers

It opens with the risk assessment duty in regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, then works through LOLER regulations 1 to 17 in order. After regulation 17 come Schedule 1, which lists what a report of thorough examination must contain, and a glossary.

The type shows which kind of text you are reading:

Italics	The words of the regulations
Bold	The Approved Code of Practice
Plain type	HSE’s guidance

A decision tree near the start helps settle whether a piece of equipment comes under LOLER at all. It asks whether the equipment is used at work and whether it lifts or lowers a load, or supports or anchors something that does. A load that never leaves its support is not lifted in LOLER’s sense. The guidance then lists examples on both sides of the line. Cranes, lift trucks, lorry loaders, vehicle tail lifts and high lift pallet trucks that raise their forks above 300 mm are lifting equipment. Conveyor belts, escalators, tipper lorries and roller shutter doors are not.

Lifting

How L113 applies to lifting and machine moving

For crane work, the guidance refers in several places to the BS 7121 series on the safe use of cranes, which starts with BS 7121-1. Regulation 8 requires every lift to be planned by a competent person and properly supervised. The book also covers:

marking the safe working load on equipment, or using a coding system where a figure cannot be marked
giving the safe working load for each radius or configuration, for example on a crane’s duty chart
keeping lifting equipment at least 10 m from overhead power lines, a point the second edition made clear
lifting people with equipment built for it, and with other equipment only in exceptional cases, after a risk assessment

Whether a machine move comes under LOLER depends on how the machine is moved. Under regulation 8, jacking a load up and down or lifting it on a gantry is a lifting operation. A machine winched along the floor without leaving it falls outside LOLER, although the winch is still work equipment under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER).

Two workers in hard hats and orange overalls on walkways beside a conveyor inside an industrial plant — Preparing a conveyor inside a plant for a crane lift.

The law

The legal status of L113

The code in L113 is approved under section 16 of the 1974 Act, and section 17 lets a court use it in a prosecution. HSE’s note on legal status says that if you are prosecuted and did not follow the relevant part of the code, you have to show you complied with the law some other way. In Scotland the procurator fiscal decides whether to prosecute.

The guidance in plain type carries less weight. Following it is not compulsory, and HSE says that doing so will normally be enough to comply. A duty holder can still comply by a different method that protects people just as well.

HSENI approved the second edition from 21 March 2022 for use with the Northern Ireland regulations of 1999. It did so under Article 18 of the Health and Safety at Work (Northern Ireland) Order 1978. HSENI and the district councils enforce there.

Editions

Editions and how to get L113

The first edition came out with LOLER in 1998. The second edition followed in December 2014, adding the decision tree and the new sector examples. A 2018 amendment reworded paragraph 28(c) on pallet trucks.

HSE publishes the full book as a free PDF, and a printed copy can be ordered from HSE Books. The text of LOLER is on legislation.gov.uk.

Sources and further reading

Questions

Common questions

What legal status does L113 have?

In Great Britain a court can use the code as evidence in a prosecution, and the guidance alongside it is advisory. In Northern Ireland, HSENI has approved the code for use with the 1999 regulations.

When was L113 last updated?

The second edition was published in December 2014, and HSE amended it in 2018 to reword the paragraph on pallet trucks.

Who should read L113?

Anyone who provides, controls, plans the use of or examines lifting equipment at work, from an employer with a single hoist to a contractor running crane lifts.