Most school business managers inherit a compliance folder rather than build one. Somewhere in it there is usually a PAT certificate, roughly a year old, covering fewer items than the school owns. That gap between the certificate and the site is the thing worth fixing, because the duty under the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 sits with the employer, and the employer has to be able to show what was checked, when, and why that interval was chosen.
Who counts as the employer depends on the type of school
In a community school maintained by City of York Council or North Yorkshire Council, the local authority is normally the employer, with the governing body sharing day-to-day health and safety duties. In a voluntary aided or foundation school the governing body is the employer, in an academy it is the trust, in an independent school the proprietor, and in a further education college the corporation. Schools within twenty miles of York sit across three separate local authorities: City of York, North Yorkshire (Malton, Norton, Pickering and the rest of Ryedale) and East Riding of Yorkshire (Pocklington, Stamford Bridge, Market Weighton). If you are a trust with sites in more than one of those areas, you may be judged against two or three different compliance schedules, so it is worth knowing which one applies to each site.
Setting intervals without defaulting to annual
Regulation 4(2) of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 requires systems to be maintained so as to prevent danger, and it names no interval at all. The IET Code of Practice for In-service Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment, now in its 5th edition, pushes duty-holders towards intervals set by risk assessment instead of habit. The IET's own summary of the 5th edition put it plainly: there is "no right or wrong answer in determining a suitable interval". Appendix 9 of that edition gives worked example risk assessments to show how you get to a defensible number.
In practice, that means a science prep room, a D&T workshop and a drama store full of trailing extension leads justify a shorter interval than the finance office. Hand-held equipment, anything moved between rooms, and anything pupils can reach all move up the list. Schools with subscriptions to CLEAPSS should also check its guidance on electrical safety in science and design and technology, which is written around the equipment those departments actually use. Our page on PAT testing for schools sets out how we split a site into risk bands before quoting.
The items schools usually forget
Laptop and tablet charging trolleys, laminators, visualisers, music tech, minibus jump packs, DT hand tools, catering equipment in the kitchen and the site team's own drills and extension reels all belong on the register. So do staff-owned appliances, and those are the ones that cause arguments: kettles, desk fans, oil-filled radiators and phone chargers brought in from home. A written policy that says personal appliances must be declared and tested before use is easier to enforce than a ban nobody follows. Cleaning contractors' vacuums sit under their own employer's duty, but asking for their records once a year costs nothing.
What the DfE now expects on paper
The DfE published its School Estate Management Standards in April 2025, covering areas including risk and compliance and scoring responsible bodies against a four-level maturity model, with level 3 described as fully effective and treated as the level bodies should be working towards. Ofsted does not carry out technical electrical inspections, but visible hazards and obvious gaps in premises compliance can surface through safeguarding and leadership discussions. A dated asset register listing every tested item by room does more for you in that conversation than a single-page certificate.
Fitting testing into a school year
Half-terms and INSET days give the cleanest run at a site, and we book those early for York and Ryedale schools because they go quickly. Testing during term time works if the timetable allows it, and it usually means working room by room with the site manager, taking classrooms during free periods and doing the hall, kitchen and IT suites after the bell. Larger secondaries and colleges tend to spread across two or three visits rather than one long day.
Pricing runs by visit length: up to an hour from £50, half-day from £125 and full-day from £250, so a small primary near Pocklington and a split-site secondary in Malton land in very different places. You can see how we work across the wider area on our York page, or read the general PAT testing service details for what a visit includes.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should a school PAT test its electrical equipment?
There is no legally fixed interval. The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require equipment to be maintained to prevent danger, and the IET Code of Practice (5th edition) asks the duty-holder to set intervals from a risk assessment. In practice schools often test higher-risk items such as D&T workshop tools, science equipment and cleaning appliances annually, while low-risk office and classroom items on fixed positions can go longer between full tests with formal visual inspections in between.
Is PAT testing a legal requirement for schools in England?
PAT testing itself is not named in law, but the duty behind it is. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require employers to maintain electrical equipment so it does not cause danger, and testing with records is the normal way schools demonstrate that. The DfE's School Estate Management Standards, published in April 2025, also expect responsible bodies to hold evidence of statutory compliance including electrical safety.
Do staff-owned kettles and heaters brought into school need PAT testing?
If a personal appliance is used at work, it falls within the employer's duty to keep electrical equipment safe. Most schools handle this with a policy requiring staff to declare any personal appliance so it can be added to the register and tested before use. Fan heaters, kettles and multi-way extension leads are the items most often found faulty, so they are worth capturing rather than ignoring.
Who is responsible for PAT testing in an academy, the trust or the individual school?
In an academy the trust is the employer and therefore holds the legal duty, even where day-to-day arrangements are delegated to a site manager or school business manager at each academy. Multi-academy trusts usually set one testing policy centrally and hold the records at trust level. For community schools maintained by City of York or North Yorkshire Council, the local authority is normally the employer and the governing body shares the operational duties.
Can PAT testing be done during term time or does it have to be in the school holidays?
Both work. Half-terms and INSET days allow full access to classrooms, IT suites and kitchens without disruption, which is why those dates book up early. Term-time testing is possible when the site manager plans it room by room around the timetable, with communal areas covered after the school day.