Permit to work. A printable permit to work for the jobs that need one — hot work, confined space, excavation, live services, roof work — with the precautions, the time limits and the hand-back on one sheet.

A permit to work is a conversation that leaves a record. Its value is not the paper; it is that somebody competent had to stop, look at the specific job, and decide what must be true before it starts — and that the person doing the work had to sign that they understood it.

The part that fails is the end. Permits are issued carefully and closed carelessly: the job finishes, everybody leaves, and the isolation stays in, the detection stays covered, the excavation stays open. The hand-back block is the reason this form exists in the shape it does, and the cancellation signature is the single most important line on it.

Time limits are fields rather than printed figures. How long a permit may run, and whether a fire watch continues after hot work, depends on the job, the site and whoever is competent to set it — and a duration printed on a generic form becomes the duration everybody uses.

One form covering several permit types is a deliberate compromise. A specialist confined space permit is a better document than this; what this is for is the site that currently has no permit system at all and is doing hot work on a Friday afternoon.