Who is responsible for electrical safety?
This is the very first article I posted on this website, way back in 2012; the question and the answer to this day remain the same, and probably always will.
Who is responsible for electrical safety in the office, or any workplace for that matter? The duty holder.
The duty holder could be the employer, business owner or someone else appointed to be responsible for ensuring safety in the workplace. Such as the Health and Safety or Office manager.
It is the duty holder’s responsibility to make sure all electrical equipment is safe to use, and is maintained to stay safe as long as it is available to use.
The designated duty holder is responsible for electrical safety at work
The employer, business owner, or designated duty holder is the person responsible for electrical appliance safety in their workplace (or equipment their business uses).
In a larger business a ‘competent person‘ is often appointed by the employer to ensure the company remains compliant, such as a Health and Safety consultant.
It is the responsibility of this person, who we call the duty holder’ to ensure all electrical appliances used or made available for use are safe. If they do not do so they may not be complying with the legal regulations.
It is common practice for the duty holder to seek out a PAT testing company such as DRA PAT testing to carry out checks on the electrical equipment on the company’s behalf.
The electrical equipment needs to meet safety requirements at all times, so will need periodic maintenance. There is nobody more appropriate to carry out such as task as a specialist PAT company.
Contracting this work out can help ease the burden on the company’s responsible person; we will be able to guide them into what equipment poses the biggest risk, what can be checked less frequent, what repairs are needed and so on.
If this sounds like the sort of help you need then get in touch with us to discuss or arrange your PAT testing.
