Quality & safety
Permit to Work
A formal authorisation to carry out a specific high-risk task, at a specific place and time, with named controls in place and a named person accepting responsibility. Hot work, confined space, work at height, live systems.
The permit is not paperwork; it is a conversation forced into a document. Its function is to make somebody stop and confirm, before the work starts, that the controls are actually in place — the isolation done, the gas test taken, the fire watch present.
And permits fail in one characteristic way: they get issued in advance, in bulk, at the start of the shift, by somebody who has not been to the location. At that point the permit certifies nothing except that a form was completed.