How I Use the Work Equipment Template with Customers in Pilla
Work equipment is the policy that separates businesses who manage safety from those who just buy things and hope for the best. I've audited sites where the equipment itself was fine, the CE marks were there, the kit was from a decent supplier. But nobody had risk assessed how it was actually being used, there was no training record, and the maintenance schedule was whatever the caretaker remembered. One site had a dough sheeter that hadn't been serviced in three years. The manufacturer's guidance said every six months.
The gap is usually between buying the equipment and managing it. PUWER doesn't just say "provide safe equipment." It says you have to keep it safe, train people to use it, assess the risks, and maintain it to manufacturer standards. That's the bit most businesses miss. This article covers what your work equipment policy needs to include, gives you a template you can edit for your operation, and explains the parts an HSE inspector will actually focus on.
Key Takeaways
- What is work equipment in health and safety? Work equipment covers anything provided by an employer for use at work, from hand tools to complex machinery. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) requires employers to ensure it's safe, suitable, and properly maintained
- Why do you need a work equipment policy? PUWER places specific duties on employers to control how equipment is purchased, risk assessed, maintained, and used. An HSE inspector will check whether you have a system for managing equipment throughout its life, not just at the point of purchase
- How do you set it up in Pilla? Use the knowledge hub template below, edit it to match your operation, and share it with your team through the app so everyone has access and you can track who's read it
- How do you automate the follow-up? Set up Poppi to chase staff who haven't acknowledged the policy and flag when it's due for review
Article Content
Understanding What's Required of You
PUWER 1998 is the regulation that governs work equipment. It applies to every employer and covers anything provided for use at work: hand tools, kitchen equipment, power tools, vehicles, lifting gear, display screen equipment. If your staff use it to do their job, it falls under PUWER.
The duties are broader than most people realise. It's not just about buying safe equipment. PUWER requires you to ensure equipment is suitable for its intended use, maintained in a safe condition, inspected where required, and only used by people who've received adequate training and information. That last point is the one I see businesses trip over most often. They buy good kit, put it on the floor, and assume people will figure it out.
The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 sits above PUWER as the overarching duty. Section 2 places a general duty on employers to provide and maintain plant and systems of work that are, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 add the requirement for risk assessment. Together, these three pieces of legislation create a chain: assess the risks, provide safe equipment, train people to use it, and maintain it throughout its working life.
An HSE inspector looking at your equipment arrangements will want to see that chain in place. They'll check whether you have a purchasing process that ensures equipment meets safety standards. They'll ask to see risk assessments for the equipment your staff use. They'll want training records showing who's been trained on what. And they'll look at your maintenance schedule to see whether you're following manufacturer guidance. The inspector isn't just checking that equipment is safe today. They're checking whether your system keeps it safe over time.
CE marking is part of this. When equipment carries a CE mark, the manufacturer is declaring it meets relevant safety standards. For most work equipment, this is a legal requirement. I've found equipment on sites with no CE marking, bought online from unknown suppliers because it was cheap. That's a PUWER breach before anyone has even switched it on.
Setting It Up as a Knowledge Hub Entry
I've built a work equipment template in Pilla covering your purchasing policy, CE marking requirements, training obligations, risk assessment process, PPE provision, maintenance schedules, and monitoring arrangements. It gives you a structured starting point that follows the PUWER requirements, but you need to edit it to reflect your own operation.
In the knowledge hub, create a new entry and tag it with "Health and Safety System". Use the same tag across all of your health and safety policies so they are grouped together and Poppi can track them as a set. Assign the entry to all teams so that everyone in the business can access it.
The template is designed to be edited, not just filed. Read through every section. Where it says "responsible persons," name those people. Where it references manufacturer guidance, list the actual equipment you have and the specific maintenance intervals. If you don't use lifting equipment, delete that reference. If you have specialist machinery that needs statutory inspection, add the details. The HSE inspector wants to see that your policy reflects your operation, not that you've downloaded a generic document.
7. Work Equipment
The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER as amended 2002)
Company Name have a duty to our employees to provide equipment to facilitate our services, which is safe and suitable for the work being undertaken. The equipment must not impact the safety of those who visit our premises.
To protect all stakeholders, we will implement these safety arrangements:
Responsible Persons will source equipment from reputable suppliers and arrange installation from competent contractors.
Develop a purchasing policy for the acquisition of new equipment to ensure that the process of purchase follows the same process as above and all new equipment is CE marked (identifying that the equipment purchased has been safety tested to this recognised standard).
Provide resources that enable all employees to be trained on the equipment they will be tasked with using. Record all training provided.
Conduct risk assessments based on the use of work equipment, to identify risk associated with use, so effective safe systems of works can be developed and communicated to all employees, tasked with using them.
Provide personal protective equipment to employees, when identified as necessary following the risk assessment process.
Arrange maintenance and servicing in keeping with manufacture guidance and statutory requirements, to ensure the equipment remains safe and fit for use.
Monitor and review our control measures to ensure these safety arrangements are followed and make improvements (if identified) to the way we manage the provision and use of work equipment.
This is a preview of the template. In Pilla, you can edit this to match your business.
What I'd want to see when reviewing this:
The purchasing section is the foundation of the whole policy. I'd want to see that you've named who can authorise equipment purchases, that you require CE marking on all relevant equipment, and that you've identified your approved suppliers. A purchasing policy that just says "buy from reputable suppliers" is too vague. Name the suppliers. Describe the approval process. Make it specific enough that someone following it would get the same result every time.
The training section needs to show the link between equipment and competence. I'd want to see that every piece of equipment has been mapped to the staff who use it, that training records exist for each person, and that there's a process for training new starters before they touch anything. The biggest risk I see is the gap between someone starting work and receiving formal training. Informal "watch me do it" training doesn't count under PUWER.
The maintenance section should reference specific manufacturer guidance for your actual equipment. I'd want to see servicing intervals, who carries out the work, and how you track that maintenance has been done. If you have equipment subject to statutory inspection (lifting equipment under LOLER, pressure systems under the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations), those inspection requirements should be listed separately with their specific intervals.
Common mistakes I see:
The risk assessment section often exists but isn't connected to anything. Businesses write risk assessments for their equipment, then file them away. The safe systems of work that should come out of those assessments never get written, or they get written but never communicated to the people using the equipment. If your risk assessment says gloves are required but the person operating the machine doesn't know that, the assessment hasn't done its job.
The monitoring and review commitment at the end of the policy is usually the weakest section. Most businesses write "we will monitor and review our arrangements" but have no system for doing it. I'd want to see who checks that equipment is being used correctly, how often, and what happens when they find a problem. Without that, the policy is a statement of intent, not a working document.
PPE provision gets listed as a control measure in risk assessments, but the link between assessment and actual provision breaks down. I've reviewed sites where the risk assessment says hearing protection is required for a specific piece of equipment, but there's no hearing protection on site. The assessment identified the control. Nobody followed through.
Automate the Follow-Up with Poppi
Writing the policy is one thing. Making sure your team has actually read it is another. Poppi can handle the chasing so you don't have to.
If you mark the knowledge hub entry as mandatory, Poppi will track who's read it and who hasn't. You can set up automations to chase staff who are behind, notify managers when someone completes the policy, and get a regular report showing where the gaps are.
Here are three automations I'd set up for any knowledge hub policy:
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Overdue training reminders
Automatically chase team members who have mandatory policies they haven't read yet. Poppi sends the reminder so you don't have to.
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Video completion alerts
Get notified when a team member finishes reading or watching a policy, so you can track progress without chasing.
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.
Training gap analysis
Get a regular AI report showing which team members are behind on mandatory policies and where the gaps are across your team.
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.