Answers
Scaffold handover certificate
Do I have to give a handover certificate, and what goes on it?
The short answer
No law makes you issue a handover certificate. It is the sheet you give the client when the scaffold is finished and a competent person has inspected it, saying what was built, what it will carry, what it must not be used for, and who put their name to it. NASC guidance recommends one and most principal contractors will not let anyone on the boards without it.
What the law does require is the inspection itself, the written report of it, and physical evidence of that inspection going with the scaffold when it passes from your firm to the client, before anybody uses it. That is regulation 12 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005, and it is the duty that bites when something goes wrong.
What the law actually asks for
Regulation 12 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005. Put into plain words, with the paragraph beside each one so you can go and read it yourself.
- Equipment whose safety depends on how it is put up, a scaffold being the obvious one, is not used after it has been put up in a position until it has been inspected in that position.Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12(2)
- A working platform used for construction work, that a person could fall 2 metres or more off, is not used in a position unless it has been inspected in that position within the previous 7 days.Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12(4)
- Work equipment exposed to conditions that make it deteriorate is inspected at suitable intervals, and every time exceptional circumstances that could put its safety in question have happened.Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12(3)
- Work equipment does not leave your business, and equipment that has come from another business is not used in yours, unless it goes with physical evidence that its last inspection under this regulation was carried out. Lifting equipment that LOLER already covers is left out of this one.Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12(5)
- The result of an inspection is recorded, and kept until the next inspection is recorded.Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12(6)
- Whoever inspects a platform in that class writes a report before the end of the working period the inspection was finished in, and gets it or a copy to the person it was carried out for within 24 hours.Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12(7)
- Whoever receives that report keeps it at the site until the construction work is completed, and after that at an office for 3 months.Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12(8)
- Inspection means a visual or a more rigorous inspection by a competent person, whichever is right for safety, and it takes in any testing that is right for it.Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12(10)
The HSE puts the same duty in a scaffolder’s order: after it is put up and before it is first used, no more than every 7 days after that, and again after anything liable to jeopardise it, high winds being its own example. A scaff tag is a useful way of showing the people on site that it has been inspected, and the HSE says plainly that a tag system is not a legal requirement. The record is.
What goes in the report
Schedule 7 of the same regulations names eight things, and no more than eight.
- The name and address of the person the inspection was carried out for.
- Where the work equipment that was inspected is.
- What it is.
- The date and the time of the inspection.
- Anything found that could put somebody's health or safety at risk.
- What was done about anything found.
- Anything further that is thought to be necessary.
- The name and the position of the person making the report.
The handover certificate and the report of inspection are not the same document. Plenty of yards put both on one sheet and there is nothing wrong with that, so long as the eight above are written down and kept for as long as regulation 12(8) says. Whether one sheet suits your job is a decision for your own competent person.
Who inspects it, and who signs
- Every scaffold inspection is by a competent person, whose knowledge, training and experience together suit the type of scaffold and how complicated it is.Guidance. HSE, Scaffolds.
- Competence may have been assessed under CISRS, or the person may have been trained by a manufacturer or supplier to inspect their particular system scaffold. A non scaffolder who has been on a scaffold inspection course, a site manager for example, could be deemed competent to inspect a basic scaffold.Guidance. HSE, Scaffolds.
- It is the scaffold user's or hirer's responsibility to make sure the scaffolding has been inspected.Guidance. HSE, Scaffolds.
- Once the scaffold has been inspected and handed over, making sure the inspections the regulations require are carried out is the client's responsibility. The certificate is where the client accepts the scaffold as fit for purpose and acknowledges that it is theirs to inspect and maintain.Guidance. NASC SG35:11.
- Who actually inspects it every 7 days after handover, the client's own competent person or your yard on the client's behalf, is agreed between you. Put it in writing, on the certificate or in the contract, so nobody finds out on the eighth day that each of you thought the other was doing it.Trade practice.
- Strength and stability calculations are carried out for a scaffold unless a note of the calculations covering how it is arranged is already available, or it is put up to a generally recognised standard configuration.The law. Work at Height Regulations 2005, Schedule 3, Part 2, paragraph 7.
- A generally recognised standard configuration means, for example, NASC TG20 for a tube and fitting scaffold, or the manufacturer's instructions for a system scaffold. A scaffold not put up to one has to be designed by bespoke calculation, by a competent person.Guidance. HSE, Scaffolds.
- In practice there are two signatures: handed over for the scaffolding firm, received for the client. A signature with no company beside it is one nobody can trace back a year later.Trade practice.
What a handover certificate should say
- Any drawings the scaffold was built to.Guidance. NASC SG35.
- What it was designed to carry, and what it is actually carrying.Guidance. NASC SG35.
- What each working platform is permitted to be loaded to.Guidance. NASC SG35.
- Anything the scaffold must not be used for.Guidance. NASC SG35.
- Who it was built for, where it is, and what was built.Trade practice.
- The day it was handed over, and the day of the inspection before first use with the name of the person who did it.Trade practice.
- That nobody alters it, adds to it or takes any part of it away except a competent scaffolder.Trade practice.
- A signature for the scaffolding firm and a signature for whoever is taking it on, with both companies named.Trade practice.
- Any part of the scaffold that is NOT being handed over, written out rather than left to be worked out.Trade practice.
- What it was built to: TG20, the manufacturer's guide for a system scaffold, or a bespoke design with its drawing number.Trade practice.
The four guidance lines are the ones a principal contractor looks for and the ones most certificates are missing. They are NASC SG35’s own: the drawings, the loadings, the permitted platform loadings and the restrictions.
What happens when there is no certificate
- Not issuing one is not, by itself, a breach of the regulations.
- No regulation asks for a handover certificate. The guidance that recommends it says so in its own words. What regulation 12(5) does ask is that the scaffold goes to the client with physical evidence that its last inspection was carried out, and that the client's people do not use it without that. A certificate that records the inspection before first use can be that evidence, so a yard that hands over without one still has to hand over something that shows the inspection was done. If somebody tells you the certificate is the law, it is not. The inspection, the report and that evidence are.
- A missing inspection record is a different matter altogether.
- If the certificate was the only place the inspection before first use was written down, and there is no certificate, then there is no record. Regulation 12(6) and 12(7) are the ones an inspector reads, and neither of them cares what the sheet is called.
- The report has a clock on it, and it is a short one.
- Written before the end of the working period the inspection finished in, with the person it was done for holding a copy within 24 hours. Then it stays at the site until the construction work is completed, and at an office for 3 months after that. A sheet that turns up a fortnight later has missed all three.
- Nobody on site has anything in writing about what it will carry.
- The loadings and the restrictions are the part of a certificate that stops an argument. Without them, after an overload or a fall, there is nothing in the file to settle what the scaffold was built for and what it was not.
- Your contract is a separate question from the regulations.
- Plenty of principal contractors make the certificate a condition of getting on site or getting paid. Whether a missing one puts you in breach is a matter for what you signed, not for regulation 12.
If you are not sure whether a particular scaffold wants a design, a report, or an inspection today, check it with your own competent person. This page is a plain summary of what is published, not advice about your job.
ScaffYard
How this desk prints one
ScaffYard keeps the statutory inspection record against the job and prints the handover certificate off it. What it does not do is decide anything.
- It prints on your own letterhead: your company name, your company number and your VAT number. The customer's copy never says ScaffYard.
- Erected on is the day the gang or the yard said the scaffold went up, never the day it was planned for. A job still at quoted prints Not recorded rather than a date.
- Handed over on is the day of the inspection before first use that found it fit for use. Not the day the sheet was printed, and not the day it was erected.
- Design and load class and Restrictions on use are headings on the sheet whether or not anything is written under them, and the app fills in neither. You write them and you sign them.
- The inspection block names the day, the person and whether they recorded it as fit for use. Where nothing in the record is marked as the inspection before first use, it says so on the sheet.
- Two signing rules at the foot: handed over for your company, received for the customer, with both companies named.
- With no erection day recorded, no inspection before first use, or the latest one recorded as NOT fit for use, the sheet prints NOT FOR ISSUE across the top with the reason in words, and the email to the customer waits until that is sorted. A scaffold that failed is sorted by recording the inspection it passes.
- Nothing on it is worked out by the app. It has not seen your scaffold. The competent person decides and the competent person signs.
Where this came from
Every source below was opened and read on 21 Sept 2026. Go and check them: a wrong regulation number on a page like this is worse than no page at all.
- [1]Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12legislation.gov.uk. The duty to inspect, the 7 day interval, the 2 metre line, the physical evidence of the last inspection when equipment passes from one firm to another, the report and how long it is kept.Read 21 Sept 2026. Phrase found: “within the previous 7 days”.
- [2]Work at Height Regulations 2005, Schedule 7legislation.gov.uk. The eight things a report of inspection has to carry, and no more.Read 21 Sept 2026. Phrase found: “Particulars to be included in a report of inspection”.
- [3]Work at Height Regulations 2005, Schedule 3legislation.gov.uk. Part 2, paragraph 7: a scaffold has strength and stability calculations unless a note of them is already available or it is put up to a generally recognised standard configuration.Read 21 Sept 2026. Phrase found: “generally recognised standard configuration”.
- [4]ScaffoldsHSE. Who inspects, what competent means, the intervals, and that a scaffold not put up to a recognised standard configuration, such as TG20 for tube and fitting or the manufacturer's instructions for a system scaffold, is designed by bespoke calculation.Read 21 Sept 2026. Phrase found: “knowledge, training and experience”.
- [5]Scaffolding, frequently asked questionsHSE. That a scaff tag system is useful and is not a legal requirement.Read 21 Sept 2026. Phrase found: “not a legal requirement”.
- [6]Inspections and reports, CIS47(rev1)HSE. The report timing and where it is kept, in the HSE's own plain words, with a suggested report form.Read 21 Sept 2026. Phrase found: “before the end of the working period”.
- [7]SG35:11, Handover of Scaffold StructuresNASC, read in a copy published at scohsg.org.uk. That there is no statutory requirement to issue a handover certificate, the four things one should refer to, and that once it is inspected and handed over the inspections are the client's to make sure of.Read 21 Sept 2026. Phrase found: “no statutory requirement”.
- [8]SG35:21, Handover of Scaffold Structures and First Scaffold InspectionNASC. The current edition. NASC sells it, so nothing is quoted from it here. A copy NASC once published openly, kept at web.archive.org, was read on the same day, and it puts the inspections after handover on the client as SG35:11 does.Sold, so named here and not quoted.