The Temporary Works Register: What BS 5975-1:2024 Expects the Coordinator to Keep, Column by Column

The temporary works register is the one document that tells you, at any moment, whether the falsework under the slab has a checked design and whether anyone has looked at the trench box today. When it is kept properly the temporary works coordinator can answer both questions from a single sheet. When it is not, the answers are in a designer's inbox, a supervisor's memory and a permit that was signed but not dated. This article sets out what the register has to record, how the status of an item moves from brief to strike, which columns turn the register into a control rather than a list, and the failures that show up in audit.

Where the requirement comes from

The legal duty is in CDM 2015. Regulation 19 requires all practicable steps to be taken to prevent danger from a structure that is in an unstable or temporary state of weakness, and requires any buttress, temporary support or temporary structure to be designed, installed and maintained so as to withstand any foreseeable loads and to be used only for the purpose for which it was designed. Regulation 22 covers excavations: supports or battering to prevent collapse, and inspection by a competent person at the start of every shift and after any event likely to affect strength or stability. HSE's temporary works guidance describes a temporary works coordinator who is formally appointed with the authority to act, and points to BS 5975 as the procedural code.

BS 5975-1:2024, Temporary works. Management procedures for the control of temporary works. Code of practice, was published in December 2024 and, with BS 5975-2:2024 on falsework design and implementation, superseded the single-part BS 5975:2019. Part 1 sets out the procedural controls for all temporary works: the roles of the designated individual, the temporary works coordinator and the temporary works supervisor; the design brief; the design and its independent check by category; the register; the permits to load and to strike; and inspection. The register is the spine of the procedure, because every other control in Part 1 either produces an entry on it or depends on one.

What counts as temporary works

Everything that supports or protects the permanent works or the people building them, and that will not be there when the job is finished: falsework and formwork, excavation support, scaffolds beyond a standard TG20 configuration, crane bases and piling platforms, propping and needling, hoardings and fencing, site access, temporary roads and working platforms, edge protection, temporary roofs, and the temporary condition of the permanent works themselves, for instance a steel frame before its bracing is complete or a retained wall during underpinning. The commonest register failure is scope: the site has a register for falsework and nothing for the hoarding, the crane base or the back-propping under the slab that the falsework design assumed.

The columns the register needs

A register that works has three groups of columns. The first identifies the item; the second records the design and check; the third records what is happening on site.

Identity

1. Item reference, unique and never reused, and the reference on the workface permit or the site health and safety summary register so the two reconcile.
2. Description, location and grid reference. "Falsework" is not a description. "Falsework to first-floor slab, gridlines C to F, 250 mm slab, pour 3" is.
3. Category. The design check category assigned under the procedure, with the assessment that produced it. Category 0 items that are standard solutions with no design need to be on the register just as much as the category 3 items, because they still need inspection.
4. Temporary works supervisor responsible for the item on site.

Design and check

5. Design brief: reference, date issued, and to whom. The brief is the coordinator's instruction to the designer and it fixes the loads, the interfaces and the constraints. An item with a design but no brief has a design to assumptions nobody recorded.
6. Designer and design received: reference, revision, date. The revision matters; a design superseded after a change on site is the classic cause of a mismatch between drawing and structure.
7. Checker, check category, and check certificate reference and date. The category sets the independence required of the checker, from the designer checking their own work at the lowest level to a check by a separate organisation at the highest. The certificate is the record that the check was done and its comments resolved.
8. Design status: a derived status such as not requested, requested and awaited, received, or overdue against the date the design is needed. This is the first column that turns the register into a control.

On site

9. Status on the ladder. Identified; brief issued; design received; check complete; erection in progress; inspected before loading; permit to load issued; in use; permit to strike issued; struck; closed. A status column with those values, in that order, tells the coordinator where every item is at a glance and lets the register report how many items are at each stage.
10. Inspection interval, last inspection and next inspection due, with the next-due date calculated from the last one. Excavations are inspected at the start of every shift under CDM regulation 22; scaffolds every seven days under the Work at Height Regulations 2005 regulation 12; other items at the interval the design or the coordinator sets.
11. Permit to load: number, date, who signed. Permit to strike: number, date, the evidence of striking strength or the condition that allowed removal.
12. Inspection status and an action flag: overdue, due within two days, in date, or interval not set. The flag is the column the coordinator sorts on every morning.
13. Notes and cross-references: the nonconformance report, the change to the permanent works design, the site instruction, the photograph.

The status ladder in practice

Take a first-floor slab falsework. The item goes on the register when the coordinator identifies it from the programme, weeks before it is needed. The design brief goes to the falsework designer with the slab thickness, the pour sequence, the ground conditions and the loads from the permanent works designer. The design comes back; the register records the revision. The check is done at the category assigned, the certificate is filed and the register moves to check complete. The falsework is erected; the supervisor inspects it against the drawing; the coordinator issues the permit to load; the pour happens. The falsework stays in use, with inspections at the set interval, until the permanent works designer confirms the striking strength has been reached, the coordinator issues the permit to strike, the falsework is removed, and the item is closed. If back-propping is required by the design, that is a separate item on the register with its own brief, design and permits, which is exactly the item the register is most likely to be missing.

What the auditor finds

• Items missing. The hoarding, the crane base, the working platform for the piling rig, the temporary condition of the steel frame. The register only lists what the site thinks of as "temporary works", which is usually falsework and trench boxes.
• Category assigned without a record. Every item is category 1 because that is what the template said. The assessment of complexity and consequence that produced the category is not written down.
• Design received, check not recorded. The designer's drawing is on the register; the check certificate is not, or it is signed by the designer for an item whose category required independence.
• Permits without a register entry. The site has a folder of permits to load with numbers that do not appear on the register, so nobody can say which items have been loaded without one.
• No dates, so no overdue. Last inspection is recorded; next due is not, so nothing on the register ever shows as late.
• The register and the site summary disagree. The coordinator's detailed register and the one-page summary on the site health and safety file carry different references for the same items.
• Superseded design. The slab was thickened, the falsework design was not revised, the register shows the original revision as current.

Keeping it in Excel, and making it work

A workbook register earns its place when the derived columns are formulas rather than typing: next inspection due from last inspection plus interval; design status from the dates; check status from the category and the certificate date; the action flag from all of them against today's date. Conditional formatting that turns overdue red, due amber and in date green means the coordinator reads the register in seconds. A dashboard tab that counts items by status and by category gives the project manager the one-line answer to "where are we on temporary works". None of that needs anything beyond ordinary Excel functions, and a register that relies on dynamic arrays or add-ins will fail on the site laptop that has neither.

The register is not the procedure

The register records; the procedure controls. A contractor needs a written temporary works procedure structured on BS 5975-1:2024 that sets out the appointments, the brief, the categories and the checks, the permits and the inspections, and names the register as the record. The designated individual appoints the coordinator in writing, with the authority to stop work. The coordinator appoints supervisors in writing for named items. The procedure sits under the quality management system alongside the construction planning and inspection procedures, and the register is one of the records it requires. Buy or write the register on its own and it will be a spreadsheet; put the procedure and the appointments around it and it is a control.