Permit to Work Procedure: How to Write One

A permit-to-work procedure is the written document that defines how your permit system operates: which work needs a permit, who may issue one, what each role must do, and what happens when things do not go to plan. It is distinct from the permit form, which is the record a single job produces, and from the risk assessment, which is what the permit's controls come from.

If an inspector asks how your permit system works, this is the document you hand over. Many sites do not have one — they have a stack of forms and a set of habits.

This guide covers UK practice and references HSE guidance. Legislation and standards may differ in other jurisdictions.

Procedure, policy, form: which is which

These three get used interchangeably and are not the same thing.

• Policy — a short statement of intent and accountability. Often a paragraph inside your general health and safety policy rather than a separate document. Section 2(3) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires most employers "to prepare and as often as may be appropriate revise a written statement of his general policy with respect to the health and safety at work of his employees and the organisation and arrangements … for carrying out that policy."
• Procedure — how the system runs. Roles, rules, sequence, exceptions. This document.
• Form — the record one permit produces. Covered in what every permit form must record.

The Act's phrase organisation and arrangements is worth noticing, because that is what a procedure is. The policy says permits will be used for high-risk work; the procedure is the arrangement that makes it true.

What has to be in it

HSE's HSG250 lists the essential features of a permit-to-work system, and they map almost directly onto a procedure's contents:

• clear identification of who may authorise particular jobs (and any limits to their authority) and who is responsible for specifying the necessary precautions
• training and instruction in the issue, use and closure of permits
• monitoring and auditing to ensure that the system works as intended
• clear identification of the types of work considered hazardous
• clear and standardised identification of tasks, risk assessments, permitted task duration and supplemental or simultaneous activity and control measures

A procedure that covers those five is doing its job. HSG250 is guidance rather than law — "following the guidance is not compulsory and you are free to take other action. But if you do follow the guidance you will normally be doing enough to comply with the law" — but it is the reference point an inspector will use.

A section-by-section structure

Eight sections. For a small contractor this is six to ten pages, not a manual.

1. Scope and purpose

What the procedure covers and where it applies. Name the sites. If subcontractors are bound by it, say so here — that sentence is what makes it enforceable in a contract.

2. Which work requires a permit

The most important section, and the one that must be specific to you. A generic list of permit types is not enough; you need the thresholds where your people actually hesitate.

Write it as this work at this threshold: hot work anywhere outside the designated welding bay; confined space entry as defined by the Confined Spaces Regulations; work at height above 2m other than on fixed access with edge protection (a threshold you set — the Work at Height Regulations 2005 impose none; see our WAHR 2005 guide); any breaking of containment on a system that has held hazardous substances; excavation deeper than 300mm in any area with buried services.

Then add the sentence that saves the most arguments: what does not need a permit, with examples. Our types of permit to work guide covers the standard categories to select from.

3. Roles and authorisation

Who does what, using consistent titles. HSG250 suggests common titles — originator, issuing authority, permit authoriser, area authority, performing authority, permit user, isolating authority — and notes that on a small site one person may hold several at once.

State the separation that cannot be collapsed: the person doing the work does not authorise it. Then reference the authorisation list rather than embedding names in the procedure, so that people changing does not require reissuing the document. Our guide to who can issue a permit to work covers how to write that list.

4. The sequence

Request through to cancellation, in order, with who signs at each point: request, risk assessment, isolation, issue at the job, acceptance, display, monitoring during work, extension or handover, hand-back, cancellation, filing.

Keep it as numbered steps. This section gets read by someone standing on site, not studied.

5. Duration, extension and suspension

Maximum validity by permit type. What happens at end of shift. How a permit is extended, and by whom. What suspension means and who examines the site before work restarts.

This is the section most often missing, and its absence is what produces open-ended permits — one of the most common audit findings in UK permit systems. HSG250 requires that on handover, signatures confirm "plant remains safe to be worked upon, and new performing authorities and permit users made fully aware of hazards/precautions. New expiry time given."

6. Interacting permits

How you check whether a new permit conflicts with a live one, and who decides. HSG250 places this on the issuing authority: work activities that may interact must be "clearly identified and either conflict avoided or precautions included on the permit."

Name the mechanism — the register, a board, a daily co-ordination meeting. "The supervisor will be aware" is not a mechanism.

7. Records

Where permits are kept, for how long, and who can retrieve them. HSG250 says permits "should be retained at site by the issuing authority for at least 30 days after completion, and then archived for a specified period to enable an effective monitoring and audit process." Your procedure names that specified period.

8. Monitoring, audit and review

How the system is checked. HSG250 recommends that "the permit-to-work system should be audited regularly, by competent people, preferably external to the site or installation," and that "system reviews, undertaken at least every three years with site and corporate management, should consider audit reports and recent industry information."

State your audit frequency, who does it, and the three-year system review with its owner. The permit to work audit guide covers what the audit should examine.

Four drafting mistakes

Writing it as an essay. Nobody reads a permit procedure end to end. Write for lookup: numbered sections, short paragraphs, tables for role responsibilities. Someone should be able to answer "who signs the extension?" in fifteen seconds.

Copying a procedure from another industry. HSG250 itself is written for the petroleum, chemical and allied industries "and other industries." A procedure lifted from a refinery onto a small construction site brings thresholds and roles that do not fit, and people quietly stop following the parts that are absurd — which teaches them the document is optional.

Aspirational content. If the procedure says permits are audited monthly and they are not, you have documented your own non-compliance. Write what you will actually do; a modest procedure you follow beats an impressive one you do not.

Embedding names and dates in the body. Names go in the authorisation list, retention periods in a single table, and permit types in an appendix. The body should survive people leaving.

Keeping it alive

Set a review date and the triggers that force an early one: a new permit type, a change of site or plant, an incident or near miss involving permitted work, an audit finding, a change in the people authorised to issue.

Version it visibly — number, date, and what changed. A procedure with no version history cannot be relied on in an investigation, because nobody can establish which version was in force at the time.

If you are writing this as part of setting up a permit system for the first time, our permit to work implementation guide covers the wider sequence, and the PTW readiness checker scores what you have against the HSG250 essentials before you start drafting.

PermitPad is building a permit-to-work system where the procedure's rules are enforced by the system — permit types, authorisation limits, maximum durations and close-out requirements configured once rather than relied on from memory. Join the waitlist to see it when it launches.

Key references

• HSG250: Guidance on permit-to-work systems — HSE, first edition 2005. Paragraph 9 (essential features), paragraphs 29-30 (roles), paragraph 58 (retention), paragraphs 61 and 63 (audit and three-yearly review). Guidance, not law
• Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 2 — general duties of employers, including the written policy statement at s.2(3) and safe systems of work at s.2(2)(a)

Disclaimer

This guide is for general information only. What your permit-to-work procedure must contain depends on your specific work activities, site conditions and sector. Always consult a competent H&S professional and the applicable legislation and sector guidance for your circumstances.