Lifting operations: lift plan versus lifting method statement, and what BS 7121 actually asks for

Ask a site team for the lift plan and a RAMS often lands on the desk instead, or the other way round. Both documents can be correct, signed and current, and the lift can still go wrong, because a method statement is not built to carry rigging calculations and a lift plan is not built to carry access and sequence. The confusion is common enough that it is worth being precise about what each document is for, who BS 7121 and LOLER 1998 expect to own it, and what has to be on the page before a crane moves a load.

Two documents, two different jobs

The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 set the legal baseline at regulation 8(1): every lifting operation involving lifting equipment must be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised, and carried out in a safe manner. Regulation 8(2) defines a lifting operation broadly, as an operation concerned with the lifting or lowering of a load. Nothing in LOLER says that plan has to be a single document, and in practice it never is. A lifting method statement describes the task around the lift: access, sequence, isolations, environment, the trades on site and the PPE they wear. A lift plan is the engineering of the lift itself: the load, the radius, the ground, the rigging, the exclusion zone and the crane's rated capacity at that configuration. One is a RAMS. The other is a calculation with a drawing attached. Treating them as interchangeable is how a plan ends up with an access route described twice and a sling angle never checked at all.

What BS 7121 actually asks for

BS 7121-1:2016, the general code of practice for the safe use of cranes, is where the lift plan's content comes from. It categorises lifts as basic, standard or complex, and the category decision drives who is competent to plan and sign the lift: a basic lift with established ground conditions and a crane working well within its chart is a different proposition from a complex lift with a shared radius, a tandem lift or a load approaching the crane's limit. The general code sits alongside part-specific codes for each type of crane: BS 7121-3:2017+A1:2019 for mobile cranes, BS 7121-4:2010 for lorry loaders, and BS 7121-5:2019 for tower cranes. A second series of parts covers inspection, maintenance and thorough examination by crane type: BS 7121-2-1:2012 (general), BS 7121-2-3:2012 (mobile cranes), BS 7121-2-4:2025 (loader cranes) and BS 7121-2-5:2012 (tower cranes). Citing "BS 7121" on an ITP or a plan without the part number is the single most common gap we see when we review one; the part tells a reader which code's categorisation and examination regime actually applies.

Who owns the plan

LOLER's "competent person" is given a job title by the industry rather than by the regulations themselves. The CPA Standard Terms and Conditions for Contract Lifting Services 2021 define the Appointed Person at clause 1.6.1 as the person with sufficient technical knowledge and experience to plan the lift and direct its execution, and the Crane Supervisor at clause 1.6.2 as the person who controls the lift on the ground against that plan. Where the work is placed as a contract lift rather than a crane hire, CPA CIG 2308 sets out which route applies and, critically, confirms that ground conditions remain the crane user's responsibility even under a contract lift, unless the contract says otherwise in writing. A plan with no named Appointed Person, or one that names a company rather than a person, has not discharged regulation 8(1) whatever else it contains.

The six things a lift plan has to show

Working from BS 7121-1's categorisation and the planning guidance in HSE's L113, Safe Use of Lifting Equipment, a lift plan that will survive review needs:

• The load: weight, centre of gravity, dimensions and how they were established, not assumed.
• The crane and configuration: radius, boom length, counterweight and the rated capacity taken from the actual chart, with the utilisation shown as a percentage, not just a pass or fail.
• The ground: bearing capacity under the outriggers or tracks, and how that was checked against the load path.
• The rigging: sling or chain type, rated capacity, angle and the mode factor that angle applies, not a generic "certified slings to be used" line.
• The exclusion zone and any overhead line proximity, set against HSE's GS6 distances where lines are present.
• Weather limits and what happens if they are reached mid-lift, including who calls the hold.

L113 paragraphs 221 to 224 distinguish a routine or generic lift plan, used for repeated lifts of the same type under the same conditions, from a plan written for a specific lift; paragraph 226 points back to BS 7121 for the detail. A generic plan used for a lift it was never written for is the gap that review usually finds, because the ground, the radius or the load has moved and nobody re-checked the chart against it.

Keeping the equipment current

A correct plan still fails if the crane or the accessories are not in date. LOLER regulation 9(3) sets the examination intervals: six months for lifting accessories and equipment used to lift people, twelve months for other lifting equipment, or whatever shorter interval an examination scheme sets, plus examination after any exceptional circumstance liable to affect its safety. Regulation 10 requires the examining body to notify the employer forthwith of any defect involving existing or imminent risk of serious injury, and to send a copy to the enforcing authority; the equipment must not be used until the defect is rectified. Regulation 11 sets retention periods for the reports, and Schedule 1 lists the eleven items a report of thorough examination has to contain. An equipment register that tracks the next-due date against each item, and flags anything overdue before it reaches site, is the record that turns these regulations from a filing duty into something that actually stops a defective sling going out again.

When it goes wrong

RIDDOR 2013, Schedule 2, makes the collapse, overturning or failure of load-bearing parts of lifting equipment reportable, other than an accessory on its own, and separately makes contact between any part of a crane or its load and an overhead line carrying more than 200 volts reportable regardless of injury. Both are the kind of event a well-run lift plan is specifically trying to prevent: the first through the ground, rigging and chart checks above, the second through the exclusion zone set against GS6. A near miss on either should be treated as seriously as a reportable one, because the gap between them is often the load swinging a few degrees differently on the day.

Keep the two documents separate, and cross-referenced

The practical fix is not to merge the lift plan and the lifting method statement into one document; it is to keep each doing its own job and link them by number. The RAMS references the lift plan number for the engineering detail and does not repeat the chart figures; the lift plan references the RAMS for access, sequence and the wider site controls and does not repeat the PPE list. Reviewers read both, and a reviewer who finds the rigging calculation buried in paragraph nine of a method statement, with no lift plan to check it against, treats that as a sign the lift was not planned by a competent person at all - whatever the paperwork says. The Lifting Operations Pack keeps that separation built in: the procedure and Appointed Person appointment, four worked lift plans against BS 7121 and LOLER, a separate lifting method statement template, the calculators behind the rigging and ground-bearing figures, and the equipment register with its examination scheme. The free ITP is the lowest-risk way to see how we write a current-edition citation before looking at anything else.