Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

6.7 
Permits to work
6.7.1 Introduction
Safe systems of work are crucial in work such as the 
maintenance of chemical plant where the potential risks 
are high and the careful coordination of activities and pre-
cautions is essential to safe working. In this situation and 
others of similar risk potential, the safe system of work is 
likely to take the form of a permit to work procedure.
The permit to work procedure is a specialized type 
of safe system of work for ensuring that potentially very 
dangerous work (e.g. entry into process plant and other 
confi ned spaces) is done safely.
Although it has been developed and refi ned by 
the chemical industry, the principles of permit to work 
procedures are equally applicable to the management of 
complex risks in other industries.
Its fundamental principle is that certain defi ned 
operations are prohibited without the specifi c permis-
sion of a responsible manager, this permission being 
only granted once stringent checks have been made to 
ensure that all necessary precautions have been taken 
and that it is safe for work to go ahead.
The people doing the work take on responsibility for 
following and maintaining the safeguards set out in the 
permit, which will defi ne the work to be done (no other 
work being permitted) and the timescale in which it must 
be carried out.
To be effective, the permit system requires the 
training needs of those involved to be identifi ed and met, 
and monitoring procedures to ensure that the system is 
operating as intended.
6.7.2 Permit to work procedures
The permit to work procedure is a specialized type of 
safe system of work under which certain categories of 
high risk-potential work may only be done with the spe-
cifi c permission of an authorized manager. This permis-
sion (in the form of the permit to work) will only be given 
if the laid-down precautions are in force and have been 
checked.
The permit document will typically specify:
➤
what work is to be done
➤
the plant/equipment involved, and how they are 
identifi ed

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