Housing · Electrical safety · PAT readiness
1st November electrical safety deadline: a practical checklist for social housing teams
Get your checks, records and review process ready — with less repeated paperwork and clearer oversight of your electrical team.
Manage Collaborate CertifyEngland · Existing social tenancies
The deadline is approaching. Can your team see what is complete, what is outstanding and what needs attention?
- Check your programme
- Bring your records together
- Agree the review workflow
A completed visit is only part of the picture
For housing associations, councils and social landlords, electrical safety work involves more than getting an engineer through the door. You also need to know which homes have been checked, where the records are, what needs follow-up and who is reviewing the completed work.
As 1st November approaches, those everyday details deserve a closer look. A simple, consistent process helps your engineers, contractors, office staff and supervisors work from the same information.
For social housing tenancies in England granted before 1 December 2025, government guidance sets a deadline before 1 November 2026 for the initial electrical installation inspections and tests, and checks of landlord-provided electrical equipment, subject to the transitional provisions.
For equipment, the qualified person decides whether visual inspection, testing or both are needed. The requirement is not a blanket instruction to carry out annual PAT testing on every appliance. Read the government guidance.
Five things to check before the deadline
Know exactly what is outstanding
Start with a clear view of the homes and equipment in your programme. Separate completed work from visits still to arrange, access issues and jobs waiting for records. Give each outstanding item an owner and a next action.
Make equipment easy to identify
Agree how your team records appliance descriptions, IDs and locations. A result is much more useful when the next person can identify the equipment it relates to without calling the engineer who attended.
Give failed equipment a clear follow-up
Keep the result and the action together. Your team should be able to see what failed, who is dealing with it and where the evidence of completion is held. A failed result should lead to an action, rather than disappear into an email attachment.
Bring the records into a consistent structure
Use the same approach across your team and contractors. Agree where records are stored, how they relate to the property or job and how colleagues can retrieve them. Avoid making someone search several inboxes to piece together a completed visit.
Agree who reviews the work
For electrical certificates that need internal QS review, make the handover explicit. Who submits the work? Who reviews it? Where do comments go? How does the engineer know a correction is needed? Agree these steps before the final rush.
PAT testing software: one input, three records
Portable appliance testing (PAT) paperwork takes time away from the work itself when the same information has to be entered repeatedly. Entering the same appliance details into several documents also creates opportunities for records to drift apart.
Certly’s PAT workflow uses one set of appliance details and test results to populate three records: the PAT Asset Register, Detailed Test Results and Failed Appliance Report, where required.
The appliances included in the job.
The readings and recorded outcomes.
Failed equipment and recorded actions.
View the three real reports at full size
These are Certly’s report outputs, rather than three separate documents that every landlord is legally required to produce. They help your team present the work consistently without copying the same information between forms.
QS Relay: a clearer route to certificate review
The wider electrical certification workflow needs the same attention. When submissions, comments and corrected certificates are spread across messages and attachments, it becomes harder to see which version is ready for approval.
Certly’s QS Relay brings submission, review, comments, corrections and approval into one workflow. Engineers can submit certificates for review, and Qualified Supervisors can request changes and review the updated work. Multiple QS support helps teams share that workload.
With access across phone, tablet and desktop, site staff, office teams and supervisors can use Certly where they work. The aim is straightforward: less chasing, clearer handovers and a better view of what still needs attention.
Make readiness easier to see
Start with your outstanding work, the quality of your records and the route to review. Then look at where repeated administration is slowing your team down.
Want to see how Certly could fit your housing team’s PAT and electrical certification workflow?
Talk to the Certly Housing TeamPrefer to explore first? Certly is free to download. Take a look around and try it for yourself.
Sources and further reading
Government guidance: electrical safety standards in the private and social rented sectors · England. Checked 9 October 2026.
PAT Testing Certificates in Certly · Electrical certificate management in Certly