The law and choosing the right kit — PASMA Towers for Users Practice

Sample questions

1. 01A supervisor asks how you decide whether a task counts as work at height under the Work at Height Regulations 2005. What is the test?

   • AWhether the person is standing on any kind of access equipment
   • BWhether a fall could cause injury if no precautions were taken
   • CWhether the work is done above the level of the ground outside
   • DWhether the platform is more than 2 metres above the floor below

   Why: The definition asks whether, without the measures in the Regulations, someone could fall a distance liable to cause injury. There is no height figure, so the 2 metre answer is wrong, and the edge of a pit or floor void counts even though it is below ground level. Standing on equipment is not the test either: the edge of a void is work at height with no equipment involved.

2. 02For one ten-minute fitting you weigh a tower against a podium, and building and dismantling the tower would take longer than the task. Which regulation 7 factor does that point to?

   • AThe distance a person climbs to reach the working platform
   • BThe extra risk of putting the equipment up and taking it down
   • CThe loads the platform must take for the materials used
   • DThe need to give personal protection priority over collective

   Why: Regulation 7(1)(b)(vi) requires you to take account of any additional risk posed by the use, installation or removal of the equipment, or by rescue from it. Building and dismantling a tower is itself work at height, so for a very short task that time counts against it. The climb distance and the loadings are real factors but not the one the build time raises, and the regulation puts collective protection before personal, not the reverse.

3. 03A self-employed electrician works as a subcontractor on a site run by a main contractor, which decides where and when towers can stand. Who carries duties under the Regulations?

   • ANeither of them, because nobody employs the electrician
   • BBoth of them, each to the extent of what they control
   • COnly the main contractor, because it controls the whole site
   • DOnly the electrician, because they are doing the work

   Why: The duties reach employers, relevant self-employed people and anyone who controls work by others, each to the extent of that control. The electrician is doing construction work, so they carry duties for their own work and equipment; the main contractor carries them for the site and timing it controls. Not being an employee does not take them outside the Regulations.