We are committed to ensuring our employees have a safe working environment and customers can access services safely. This document outlines the requirements for testing, certification and maintenance of the electrical installations within all Council premises.
We will achieve this by ensuring all electrical installations within Council buildings are fit for purpose, appropriately maintained and have a valid Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR).
This document does not cover Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) of electrical equipment or Council housing stock.
This document forms part of our safety management system and must be followed for buildings with electrical installations. For the purposes of this document, the electrical installation is any electrical equipment between the Council side of the junction with the electrical network and any outlet for electrical appliances to be plugged in.
Managing Safe Electrical Installations
This section outlines the necessary steps the Council will undertake to ensure safe electrical installations across the Council's property portfolio. All Council owned premises are required to have a satisfactory EICR certificate.
Statutory Compliance and Use of Buildings
All Falkirk Council operational buildings must have a current EICR certificate in order to be used for Council purposes. This is how the Council demonstrates compliance with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989. In the event that a building either fails to attain an EICR certificate or its EICR lapses this building is no longer fit for purpose.
In this situation the following must occur:
- The relevant Chief Officer must be notified immediately upon discovery of the issue.
- The Building Design Unit and the Health, Safety & Wellbeing Team must be engaged immediately to develop an action plan to ensure the safety of building users in conjunction with the relevant Chief Officer.
- The Insurance Department must be notified immediately.
Any individual within the Council who identifies that a building no longer possesses a valid EICR or fails to attain its EICR is responsible for notifying any of these 3 parties.
In cases where the Council has employees within a building that is not owned by the Council, responsibility for conducting the EICR will be established within the tenancy contract. In the event that this building either fails to achieve an EICR or its EICR lapses the above process will be followed.
Appointment of Inspectors & Management of Contractors
The Building Design Unit (BDU) will manage the contract for EICR inspections. To facilitate this responsibility the BDU will:
- Develop an inspection schedule for Council premises.
- Appoint a competent person to conduct EICR inspections for Council premises.
- Conduct regular contract and inspection schedule reviews.
Frequency of Inspection
Premises will be inspected in accordance with the requirements of BS7671 – Requirements for Electrical Installations (IET Wiring Regulations). These frequencies are outlined below:
| Office/Administration Building |
Every five years |
| ‘Wet side’ installations |
Annual |
| Industrial Buildings |
Every 3 years |
| Entertainment & Leisure Buildings |
Every 3 years |
'Wet side' installations are those where the electrical installation is located in an area with exposure to water. For the Council, this typically means swimming pools. As such, a building may need to have additional EICRs undertaken for the installation around a swimming pool in addition to their regular five yearly inspection.
These frequencies represent the minimum requirements. Where there is agreement between the BDU and the competent person undertaking the EICR, these inspections may be undertaken on a more regular basis.
The Building Design Unit will be responsible for determining EICR testing frequencies for Council buildings in conjunction with the competent person.
Scheduling of EICR Inspections
The BDU will notify Premises Managers of the scheduled EICR inspection at least 28 days prior to it occurring. Premises Managers should notify the BDU as soon as possible if this date is unsuitable to arrange another inspection date.
It is the Premises Manager’s responsibility to permit access to the competent person to undertake the EICR inspection.
Rectification of Faults
During an EICR observations about the electrical installation will be made. The different types of observations are:
| Category 1 (C1) |
Danger Present, risk of injury. Immediate action required. |
| Category 2 (C2) |
Potentially dangerous – urgent remedial action required. |
| Category 3 (C3) |
Improvement recommended |
| Further Investigation (FI) |
Further investigation required without delay |
The responsibility for rectifying faults identified through an EICR rests with the Service that operates the building. The relevant Service must engage with the Building Design Unit in order to ensure faults are rectified within the relevant timeframes.
Category 1 observations will be fixed at the time of the inspection by the competent person. Where it is not possible to do this, the electrical installation (or relevant section of it) will be isolated until such a time as the fault can be fixed.
Category 2 and Further Investigation observations must be fixed within one month of the inspection date. The BDU will liaise with the Premises Manager to ensure these observations are completed within this timescale.
These observations will result in an unsatisfactory EICR until they are fixed.
Category 3 observations should be fixed within 1 month of the inspection date. However, in some cases fixing these may not be required to achieve a satisfactory EICR. The BDU will provide advice to premises managers on requirements to rectify these.
Payment for EICR and remedial work
Services must pay for EICR inspections and subsequent remedial work. In order to improve tracking costs for electrical works all EICR inspections and remedial work will be charged to the following cost codes:
| Type of Work |
Cost Code |
| EICR Inspection+ Immediate C1 repairs |
DH2009 |
| Follow up remedial work (C2, C3 & FI) |
DH2017 |
To help facilitate timely follow up remedial works, all Services must notify the BDU of an acceptable cost threshold for the BDU to automatically approve follow up remedial work.
Where the costs of follow up remedial work exceeds this threshold the BDU will contact the Premise Manager to confirm the plan to complete the work within the 1 month timeframe.
Monitoring
The BDU is responsible for monitoring the completion of EICR inspections. They will:
- Notify the relevant Head of Service in the event that the competent person is not permitted access to a premises to conduct an EICR inspection.
- Notify the relevant Premises Managers and Head of Service where follow up remedial work is not completed within the 1 month time frame.
- Ensure Premises Managers are notified in the event that their electrical installation (or part thereof) is isolated during an EICR inspection due to unresolved C1 observations.
- Report to the Safety Management Group on a 6 monthly basis regarding the progress of the inspection schedule. This report will contain at a minimum:
- Building Inspected and outcome of inspection
- Status of completion of remedial work
- Buildings that have failed to achieve an EICR or their EICR has lapsed.