Standards and responsibility
Playground inspection records: what belongs in the logbook
An inspection that cannot be shown afterwards is hard to tell apart from one that never happened. The four parts of a record, and how little it takes to start.
Short answer
A playground record answers four questions: what you have, what could go wrong, what you do and how often, and how you know it was done. In practice that is an inventory of the equipment, a written judgement of risk and intervals, a description of the routine, and a logbook of inspections with findings, actions and closures.
There is an uncomfortable asymmetry in this subject. An inspection that was done but not written down is, at the moment somebody asks, impossible to tell apart from one that never happened. The record is not paperwork laid on top of the work. It is the only thing that makes the work visible afterwards.
The four questions a record has to answer
The first three are written once and updated when something changes. The fourth grows every time somebody walks a round, and it is the one that carries the weight. The first three describe an intention; the logbook shows what happened.
The inventory
The foundation is simple and is rarely done properly: a list of what is actually standing there. The type of equipment, where it is, ideally a photograph, and what you know about the year it was bought and who supplied it.
- Include what was built on site. A home-made climbing tower is playground equipment.
- Include what came with the property and whose origin nobody remembers.
- Include the surfaces: impact attenuating surfacing, fences and gates belong to the site and are inspected with it.
- Keep equipment that has been removed, marked as removed. The history belongs to the record even when the equipment is gone.
The logbook: what people actually ask for
A useful logbook answers five things per round, and no more: what was inspected, when, by whom, what was found, and what then happened to what was found.
| Field | Why it is there |
|---|---|
| Date and level | Shows that the interval was kept, and which kind of inspection it was. |
| Carried out by | Makes it traceable. A name, not “the board”. |
| Equipment and points | Shows the scope — that the whole site was covered, not only the swing. |
| Findings, with a grade | How urgent the action is, and therefore what happens next. |
| Action, owner, closing date | What turns a finding into something other than a note. |
The last line is the one most often missing. A finding without a closure is an open question that stays in the record, and a list of six-year-old open findings is worse than no list at all: it shows that the system existed and was not followed.
The report from the annual main inspection
That report is one document out of the set, not the set. It shows the state of the playground on one day of the year. What shows that the site was looked after on the other days is your own logbook of routine visual and operational inspections.
A main inspection report that sits unread in an inbox is worse than no report: it documents that you were told. The findings in it belong in the same follow-up as your own — action, owner, date, closure.
How long to keep it
Longer than feels necessary. A piece of equipment's history is interesting across its whole life, and questions about an accident can arrive a long time afterwards. Keep the logbook for as long as the equipment is standing, and keep the main inspection reports after it has been removed.
How long records have to be kept, if there is a period at all, is set nationally where it is set at all. This guide does not tell you what your national rule is, because there is no single one across the countries this site serves.
What you get out of it besides the record
What starts as evidence turns fairly quickly into something else: a history. Which equipment costs the most maintenance, which surfacing needs topping up every spring, whose chains last. That is the kind of knowledge an organisation otherwise loses every time the person who held it moves on.
Lekko produces this as a by-product of the round rather than as a second job: the inventory, the history per item, findings with grade and closure, and one document you can hand over. See also how often each level is needed.
Questions and answers
Is there a set format for playground inspection records?
No. EN 1176-7 is about the inspections being carried out and being traceable, not about a particular form. The practical test is whether somebody outside your organisation could read the record and see what was inspected, when, by whom, and what happened to the findings.
Is the inspector's report enough on its own?
No, it covers one level of three. It shows the state of the playground on one day. What shows that the site was looked after during the rest of the year is your own logbook of routine visual and operational inspections.
Who should be named as responsible for a finding?
A person, not a function. “The board” is not somebody who can answer for whether the work was done; a name is. It does not have to be the person doing the work, but it has to be somebody who knows whether it happened.
We have nothing written down from before. Where do we start?
With the inventory and one routine visual inspection. Those two give you a baseline and take an afternoon. Do not try to reconstruct a history you do not have — a logbook that honestly starts today is credible, and one assembled after the fact is not.
Sources
- EN 1176 and EN 1177 – CEN/TC 136 Sports, playground and other recreational facilities and equipment (CEN-CENELEC)
- CEN-CENELEC: European Standards, and how members adopt them nationally
This article is written by The Lekko editorial team and gives a practical account of the requirements. It does not reproduce the standards EN 1176 and EN 1177, and it does not replace the annual main inspection by a competent person. If you are unsure what applies to your playground, ask a competent person or the relevant authority in your own country.
Less fuss. Lekko remembers.
Ready-made checklists built from EN 1176 and EN 1177, a reminder before every inspection, and a report you can hand over in one click.