TG20 compliance sheets

The one paragraph of law behind it

The Work at Height Regulations 2005, Schedule 3, Part 2, paragraph 7, says strength and stability calculations for scaffolding have to be carried out, unless a note of the calculations covering the arrangement is available, or it is assembled in conformity with a generally recognised standard configuration. So calculations are the default, and there are two ways past them: calculations already done that cover the same arrangement, or a recognised standard configuration. A TG20 compliance sheet is the paper that says which recognised configuration yours is. [1]

Three more paragraphs of the same Schedule ride alongside it. Paragraph 8 wants an assembly, use and dismantling plan drawn up by a competent person, sized to how complicated the scaffold is. Paragraph 9 says a copy of that plan, with any instructions in it, is kept available to everybody assembling, using, dismantling or altering the scaffold until it has come down. Paragraph 12 says a scaffold is only assembled, dismantled or significantly altered under the supervision of a competent person and by people trained for the job. [1]

What a compliance sheet actually is

TG20 is NASC’s guidance for tube and fitting scaffolding, and the edition NASC sell is TG20:21. [5] [8] The sheets themselves come out of NASC’s own compliance sheet software on the NASC ePortal. TG30 is the same idea for system scaffold. [5] NASC’s guide for firms hiring a scaffolder puts the manufacturer’s user manual alongside TG30 as well. [7]

NASC’s ePortal page says the arrangements behind TG20 and TG30 were settled by structural calculation in advance, and that for a scaffold built to one of them additional bespoke design is not required. [5]

Getting at the software is a paid subscription, at one rate for NASC members and another for everybody else. The prices are on NASC’s own page and they move, so they are not copied here. [5]

One thing worth knowing if you are the one being checked, or the one doing the checking. NASC’s own compliance sheet notice says producing a sheet does not, in itself, infer NASC membership, and that a sheet or design from a firm NASC has not audited should be verified on top. A compliance sheet is a statement about a scaffold, not a badge for the firm that printed it. [6]

TG20 itself is a paid NASC publication and none of it is reproduced on this page. No table, no figure, no clause. What your scaffold may carry, how it must be tied and how far a bay may run is on your sheet, and your sheet is the document that counts.

When you are inside it, and when you are not

The HSE puts the whole choice in one sentence: unless a scaffold is put up to a generally recognised standard configuration, such as NASC TG20 for tube and fitting or a manufacturer’s instructions for system scaffold, it must be designed by bespoke calculation, and by a competent person. [4]

The HSE also lists the structures that normally need a bespoke design. The list runs past thirty items. Among the ones it puts no note against are shoring scaffolds, truss-outs, facade retention, temporary roofs and temporary buildings, support scaffolds, slung and suspended scaffolds, pavement gantries, and staircases and fire escapes unless the manufacturer’s instructions cover them. It finishes with a catch-all: anything else that falls outside the compliant scaffold criteria in TG20 or the equivalent guidance from a system manufacturer. [4]

Some items on that list carry a note, and the notes matter. Against cantilevered scaffolds, complex loading bays, mobile and static towers, free standing scaffolds, bridge scaffolds and protection fans, the HSE notes that TG20:21 does give compliant scaffolds for a limited range of cantilevers, loading bays, towers, rakers, bridges and protection fans. Against access scaffolds with more than two working lifts, it notes that a TG20:21 scaffold can be boarded at any number of lifts, as long as no more than two are in use as working platforms at the same time. So a bridge or a fan can be on a sheet, and whether yours is, is for your competent person to settle with the sheet in front of them. Read the whole list and its notes on the HSE page before you decide, because this is a handful of it and not the lot. [4]

Changing a scaffold can take it out of scope after it has gone up. The HSE says any proposed modification or alteration that takes a scaffold outside a generally recognised standard configuration has to be designed by a competent person and proven by calculation. An adapt that hangs a fan or bridges a gap is a fresh question, not a variation on the old answer. [4]

NASC say the same thing from the contractor’s side. In section 5.1 of their Guide to Appointing a Scaffolding Contractor there are two routes. One is a recognised configuration: a TG20 sheet for tube and fitting, or for system scaffold a TG30 sheet or the maker’s manual. The other is a design of the scaffold’s own, worked out by calculation. Sections 5.2 and 5.3 hand anything outside TG20, TG30 or the maker’s manual to a competent scaffold designer, who does the design and the sums. [7]

Cladding is the one that catches yards out. Section 6.4 of the same guide says the contract may call for brickguards, sheeting or netting on the scaffold, and where that cladding is not covered by TG20 or TG30, a design must be in place prior to erection. Worth settling before you agree to sheet a scaffold that was priced bare. [7]

What a yard has to keep

Seven things, and where each one has to be. The first three come off NASC’s guide, which is guidance. The last four come off the Regulations, which are the law.

• The compliance sheet, or the design and its calculations. NASC section 5.9: the customer, or whoever is using the scaffold, is handed the sheet or the design together with the tie test results, to accept and put their name to, and a set stays on site. [7]
• The rest of the paperwork, on site with your team. NASC section 5.8: whatever paperwork goes with the scaffold is gone through with the scaffolders who build it, and it stays on the job. A sheet in the office helps nobody on the deck. [7]
• The handover certificate. NASC section 7.1: once a scaffold is up, the contractor’s own inspector checks it against the law, the codes of practice and its own sheet or design, fills in a handover certificate and sees that somebody for the customer has a copy. In NASC’s guide that certificate counts as the first inspection. [7]
• The assembly, use and dismantling plan. Kept available to everybody assembling, using, dismantling or altering the scaffold, right up until it has come down. That is Schedule 3, Part 2, paragraph 9, and it is the law rather than guidance. [1]
• The statutory inspection reports. Regulation 12(4): a working platform used for construction work, from which somebody could fall two metres or more, is not used in any position unless, within the previous seven days, it has been inspected in that position or, in the case of a mobile working platform, inspected on the site. So for anything that is not a mobile working platform, the inspection that counts is one done in the position it is being used in. Regulation 12(7): the person inspecting prepares a report with the Schedule 7 particulars before the end of the working period the inspection finishes in, and gets it to the person the inspection was for within 24 hours. [2] [3]
• What goes in the report. Schedule 7 lists eight things: who the inspection was for and their address, where the equipment is, what it is, the date and time, anything found that could be a risk to health or safety, what was done about it, what still needs doing, and the name and position of the person making the report. [3]
• Where the reports live afterwards. Regulation 12(8): kept at the site where the inspection was carried out until the construction work is completed, and then at an office for three months. [2]

Two more things from NASC section 7.2 that are worth having straight before an argument on site. NASC treat a scaffold tag as an extra check on top, never a stand-in for the statutory inspection or its written report. And they put the seven day inspection on whoever hired the scaffold or is using it, not on the scaffold firm. Your own contract may put it somewhere else, so read it. [7]

What this page is not

It is not advice and it decides nothing. It says what the Regulations, the HSE and NASC say, and it tells you where to read them yourself. Whether a particular scaffold on a particular site is inside a compliance sheet is a question for your own competent person with the sheet in their hand, and nobody else.

Every source below was opened on 21 Sept 2026. Regulations get amended and guidance gets revised. If you are reading this a long way after that day, open the source rather than trusting the page.

Where ScaffYard fits

ScaffYard does not produce a compliance sheet and never will. That is NASC’s ePortal and it should stay there.

What the desk does is record which of the four a job was built to, a TG20 sheet, a TG30 sheet, a manufacturer’s manual or a bespoke design, along with the reference of that sheet or drawing and the scaffold type, load class, height, wind note and whether it is sheeted. It prints that on the RAMS and on the handover certificate so the two cannot disagree, files the sheet itself against the job, and keeps the inspection record at the seven day interval regulation 12 sets. It works nothing out, it passes nothing and it never says a scaffold is safe. You type what your sheet says, because your sheet is the document that counts.

Sources

Each one opened and read on the day named. The address is written out as well as linked, so a printed copy of this page still tells you where to look.

1. [1] The Work at Height Regulations 2005, Schedule 3, Part 2, paragraphs 7, 8, 9 and 12. Checked 21 Sept 2026. legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/735/schedule/3
2. [2] The Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12, paragraphs (4), (7) and (8). Checked 21 Sept 2026. legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/735/regulation/12
3. [3] The Work at Height Regulations 2005, Schedule 7, the particulars in a report of inspection. Checked 21 Sept 2026. legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/735/schedule/7
4. [4] HSE, Scaffolds, scaffold design, the list of structures that normally need a bespoke design, and the two notes on that list. Checked 21 Sept 2026. hse.gov.uk/construction/safetytopics/scaffoldinginfo.htm
5. [5] NASC ePortal, what a TG20 or TG30 compliance sheet is, and how a firm gets at one. Checked 21 Sept 2026. nasc.org.uk/information/tg2021
6. [6] NASC, Compliance Sheet Notice, what producing a compliance sheet does and does not say about a firm. Checked 21 Sept 2026. nasc.org.uk/nasc-eportal/compliance-sheet-notice.html
7. [7] NASC, Guide to Appointing a Scaffolding Contractor, issue date August 2025, sections 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.8, 5.9, 6.4, 7, 7.1 and 7.2. Checked 21 Sept 2026. nasc.org.uk, Guide to Appointing a Scaffolding Contractor
8. [8] NASC, TG20:21 User Guide, the edition name, off NASC's own listing. Checked 21 Sept 2026. nasc.org.uk/product/tg20-21-user-guide-hard-copy.html