PTW Form: What Every Permit Must Record

There is no legally prescribed permit-to-work form in the UK. There is, however, a published list of what one should contain: HSE's HSG250 sets out thirteen essential elements in its Figure 1, and most permit forms in circulation are a subset of that list.

The useful exercise is not redesigning your form. It is checking your existing one against those thirteen and finding the two or three that are missing — because the omissions are consistent across sites, and they are the ones that cause audit findings.

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

The thirteen elements

From HSG250, Figure 1, "Essential elements of a permit-to-work form":

Permit title — what kind of permit this is
Permit reference number — and reference to other relevant permits or isolation certificates
Job location
Plant identification
Description of work to be done and its limitations
Hazard identification — including residual hazards and hazards associated with the work
Precautions necessary and actions in the event of an emergency — with the people who carried out precautions, such as the isolating authority, signing that precautions have been taken
Protective equipment, including PPE
Issue — signature of the issuing authority confirming isolations made and precautions taken, plus date and time duration; for high-hazard work a further signature from the permit authoriser
Acceptance — signature confirming understanding of the work, hazards and precautions, and that the information has been explained to all permit users
Extension / shift handover — signatures confirming the plant remains safe to work on, new people made aware of hazards and precautions, new expiry time given
Hand-back — signed by the performing authority certifying work complete, and by the issuing authority certifying plant ready for testing and recommissioning
Cancellation — certifying work tested and plant satisfactorily recommissioned

HSG250 is guidance rather than law. It states that "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." An inspector comparing your form against this list is the realistic scenario to design for.

The five that get left off

Working through permit forms in general circulation, the same gaps recur.

Limitations (element 5)

Most forms have "description of work." Far fewer have and its limitations.

The limitation is what stops a permit for replacing one valve becoming a permit for working on the line. It is the boundary of the authorisation: this section of pipe, not the system; cold cutting, not welding; this floor, not the roof. Without it, scope creep is invisible — the work drifts and the paperwork still appears to cover it.

Practical fix: add a field headed "This permit does NOT cover" and require it to be completed rather than left blank. It reframes the question usefully.

Residual hazards (element 6)

Forms usually capture the hazards of the work. Element 6 asks for something wider: "residual hazards and hazards associated with the work."

Residual hazards are what remains after your precautions — the caustic still in the dead leg, the adjacent live conductor, the stored energy in a spring. They are what the person on the job needs to know precisely because you have not eliminated them. A form that only lists hazards you have controlled records the reassuring half.

Extension and shift handover (element 11)

This is the most commonly missing element and the one that generates the most improvisation. When a form has no handover section, people cross out the expiry time and write a new one — an altered permit that nobody re-checked.

HSG250 requires the handover signature to confirm that "plant remains safe to be worked upon, and new performing authorities and permit users made fully aware of hazards/precautions. New expiry time given." That is a fresh check with a fresh signature, not an amended time.

Hand-back and cancellation as separate steps (elements 12 and 13)

Many forms have one "close-out" signature. HSG250 has two, and the distinction matters: hand-back certifies the work is complete and the plant is ready for testing; cancellation certifies the plant has been tested and satisfactorily recommissioned.

Between those two states the work has stopped but the plant is not back in service. That is precisely when isolations get removed prematurely. Collapsing them into one signature removes the control over that interval. Our permit to work example follows a job through both steps to show where the gap sits.

Cross-reference to other permits (element 2)

The reference number is universal. The reference to other relevant permits or isolation certificates is often absent.

Without it, a permit and its isolation certificate are two pieces of paper that only a person's memory connects. Cross-referencing is also what makes interacting work visible — HSG250 requires the issuing authority to ensure that work activities which may interact "are clearly identified and either conflict avoided or precautions included on the permit."

Two fields worth adding beyond the thirteen

HSG250's list is a floor, not a ceiling.

Risk assessment reference. The permit is not the risk assessment — it is evidence that the assessment's controls are in place. A field pointing at the assessment by reference number keeps that relationship explicit and makes the audit trail continuous. Several of our specialist templates include it, including the confined space permit template and the working at height permit template.

Suspension. HSG250 describes suspension as a defined state in the system. Many forms have no place to record it, so a suspended permit looks identical to a live one on the register. A short suspension block — time, reason, who examined the site, condition on suspension — closes that gap.

Auditing the form you already have

Twenty minutes, and it does not require redesigning anything:

Print your form and the thirteen elements side by side. Tick each one present.
For each missing element, ask what people currently do instead. There is always a workaround, and the workaround tells you the risk — crossed-out expiry times mean no handover section.
Check the signature count. A form with fewer than four signature points (issue, acceptance, hand-back, cancellation) is missing a control, not just a field.
Check it fits on the job. A form nobody completes properly because it runs to four pages is a worse control than a shorter one that gets filled in. Element count is not the same as page count.
Check the permit types. Each type needs the general elements plus its specialist section. Our types of permit to work guide covers which you actually need — a confined space permit missing atmospheric testing results is not a general-form problem.

If you would rather start from a structure than audit one, the general permit to work template sets out the standard sections, and the permit to work checklist covers what gets checked at each stage rather than what gets written down.

Form design does not fix system design

Worth saying, because it is the most common misdirection in this area.

A permit form with all thirteen elements, issued by someone not authorised for that work, without a site visit, and never closed out, is a well-designed record of an uncontrolled job. HSG250's essential features are mostly about the system — who may authorise, training, monitoring and audit — and the form is the artefact that system produces.

If your close-out rate is unknown, or you cannot say how many permits are live right now, fixing the form will not touch either problem. The PTW readiness checker scores the system rather than the paperwork, and the permit to work audit guide covers what an inspector looks at beyond the form itself.

PermitPad is building a permit-to-work system structured around the HSG250 elements — with limitations and residual hazards as required fields, handover as its own signed step, and hand-back separated from cancellation. Join the waitlist to see it when it launches.

Key references

HSG250: Guidance on permit-to-work systems — HSE, first edition 2005. Figure 1 (essential elements of a permit-to-work form), paragraph 9 (essential features of the system), paragraph 37 (issuing authority responsibilities). Guidance, not law
Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 2 — the duty to provide and maintain safe systems of work

Disclaimer

This guide is for general information only. The content of a permit-to-work form depends on the specific work, plant and sector involved, and specialist permit types carry additional requirements. Always consult a competent H&S professional and the applicable legislation and sector guidance for your circumstances.