Controller Duties

The following information is only a brief overview. For the exact words see the PECPR Regulations.

A controller is a person who is the owner, lessee, sublessee, or bailee, or who is responsible for equipment covered by the regulations in a place of work.

As a Controller you have the following duties.

Duties related to Information

You must hold the following information:

1. Information necessary to ensure that every activity involving the equipment can be carried out safely. This would include information such as catalogues, drawings, manuals or specifications;
2. Information establishing compliance with the requirements of the PECPR Regulations relating to design, design verification, equipment inspection, installation and manufacture. This would include information such as drawings, manuals and test certificates.

​If this information is not available from the designer, manufacturer or supplier you must:

1.  Obtain information to the same effect from another source
2. Confirm the information is adequate and appropriate under the controller’s quality management system or, if the controller does not have such a system, by an inspection body

You must also ensure that the following information is readily accessible by any person, including an inspector, who wants to examine it:

1. Every certificate of design verification
2. Every current certificate of inspection
3. Every report associated with those inspections
4. Any other information that the controller has affecting the safety of the equipment.

​This could include:

• documents and drawings referred to in certificates of design verification
• test reports arising from the manufacturing, erection and commissioning of the equipment
• erection and commissioning information required for the safe operation, maintenance and servicing of the equipment
• the date, time, full description and the inspection and test reports for any repair or alteration
• maintenance records
• manufacturer’s data reports including details of nominal wall thickness and corrosion allowances.

Duties related to Accident Notification

Where any event occurs in a place of work that:

1. Causes damage that affects the operational safety of equipment, or
2. Causes damage to other property that may affect the safety of equipment, and
3. which might, in different circumstances, have caused a person to be seriously harmed; ​

Every controller must:

1. Notify the Secretary as soon as possible, and
2. give the Secretary, within 7 days of the event’s occurrence, a detailed written report of an investigation of the circumstances of the event, carried out by an inspection body other than that which issued the latest certificate of inspection for the equipment in question, or by a chartered professional engineer, independent of the controller. 

Duties related to Operation

As a Controller you must take all practicable steps to ensure that equipment-

1. is safe, and
2. is operated safely, and
3. is operated within the limits that it was designed to operate within, and
4. is maintained in a safe condition. 

You must also ensure that no equipment is operated unless it has a current certificate of inspection.

Duties related to Maintenance

You must ensure that equipment that has been:

1. Repaired or altered in a way affecting the operational safety of the equipment, or
2. Adjusted, altered or repaired following an investigation

Is not operated until a new certificate of inspection has been issued.

In relation to a repair or alteration. You must ensure that

1. The repair or alteration is designed in accordance with the PECPR Regulations, and
2. Design verification requirements for the design specified by the designer are complied with, and
3. The repaired or altered equipment is subject to equipment inspection in accordance with the PECPR Regulations.

Resources

PECPR Regulations

PECPR Guidance