Who's Responsible?

Why Test?

Electrical Appliance Testing or PAT Testing as it is sometimes referred to, is an important part of any Health & Safety Policy. If your working environment has any appliances with a plug attached, then these are classed as Portable Appliances.

What is a PAT (Portable Appliance Tester)?

Some Legislation highlights the necessity to test and tag electrical equipment which may help to:

• Reduce the risk of preventable accidents
• Reduce the risk of potential financial and legal consequences through using non-compliant (tagged equipment)

NOTE: Please refer to our links page to check individual States Legislation and Policies for portable appliance testing.

What are the benefits of testing?

Productivity Increases
Testing has the benefit of being an effective preventative maintenance tool, identifying small problems before they become large problems.

Reduced Insurance costs
A successful and pro-active approach to OH&S combined with good bargaining skills will normally result in lower insurance costs. One or two preventable claims will certainly result in severe increases in your insurance cost.

Insurance Compliance
As electrical testing is a requirement under law, non-compliance with the regulations is sufficient reason for an Insurance Company to deny a claim. Non-acceptance or even a delayed acceptance of a claim can put severe cash flow pressures on any business.

Litigation
If you are compliant with all relevant legislative requirements and you have a well documented OH&S program implemented, you may reduced the likelihood that a claim based on negligence will be successfully pursued against you in the event that one of your staff has an electrical accident. This not only saves you the financial cost of a successful claim against you, it also saves you the management time required to fight such a lawsuit.

Duty of Care

The Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985, states that all businesses or organisations must provide a safe place of work. The position of the ACT now provides that, where the director's policies, and decisions are what actually caused the death of a worker, or the director allows a corporate culture to develop that disregards worker's safety that results in a death, the company, director/s or manager could be convicted of "Industrial Manslaughter."

Depending on which State your business resides in will determine the penalties, but as an example, in NSW the first offence can carry a maximum penalty of $550.000. An individual who faces a second offence could be fined up to $82,500 and/or 2 years imprisonment.

Risk management and a pro-active approach to OH&S in the work place should be common practise.

How Regularly Does Electrical Equipment Have to Be Tested?

Type of environment and/or equipment (a)	Class of equipment		Residual Current Devices (RCDs)				Cord sets and power boards (h)
	Class I (Protectively earthed) (b)	Class II (double insulated) (c)	Push-button test by user		Operating time and push-button test
			Portable (d)	Fixed (e)	Portable (f)	Fixed (g)
1. Factories, workshops, places of work or repair, manufacturing, assembly, maintenance or fabrication	6 months	12 months	Daily, or before every use, whichever is the longer	6 months	12 months	12 months	6 months
2. Environment where the equipment or supply flexible cord is subject to flexing in normal use OR is open to abuse OR is in a hostile environment	12 months	12 months	3 months	6 months	12 months	12 months	12 months
3. Environment: where the equipment or supply cord is NOT subject to flexing in normal use and is NOT open to abuse and is NOT in a hostile environment	5 years	5 years	3 months	6 months	2 years	2 years	5 years
4. Residential type areas of: hotels, residential institutions, motels, boarding houses, halls, hostels accommodation houses, and the like	2 years	2 years	6 months	6 months	2 years	2 years	2 years
5. Equipment used for commercial cleaning	6 months	12 months	3 months	N/A	12 months	N/A	12 months
6. Hire equipment:
Inspection	Prior to hire		Including push-button test by hirer prior to hire		N/A	N/A	Prior to hire
Test and tag	3 months		N/A		3 months	12 months	3 months
7. Repaired, serviced and second-hand equipment	After repair or service which could affect electrical safety, or on reintroduction to service
8. New Equipment	Inspection, testing and tagging is required prior to use in service

Ongoing Maintenance Obligation

The tag should show that on the date of testing, the item complied with safety requirements.

Simply seeing a tag does not relieve you or your staff from an ongoing obligation to make sure the item continues to be safe. If it is damaged in any obvious way, have it taken out of service, repaired and re-tested before being re-introduced to service, and mark the actions you have taken in your equipment manifest. You must maintain your equipment and records in this way. Your supplier should be able to make you aware of this.

What is the Return from Your Investment?

Simply having a tag attached does not mean that your equipment complies, or has actually been tested or properly tested.

How would you know?
Do you know what the proper tests are?
And how can you be sure that the Next Test Date on a tag is accurate?
Has the supplier used compliant equipment to obtain the test result to ensure the integrity of the data?

Your supplier should commit to carrying out electrical testing under the relevant standards, otherwise you may find that even though your equipment is tagged, you still may not comply. Worse still, your equipment may not be safe.

Which tag colour is right for my industry?

If you require any further advice, please contact us.