SAFETY CONSULTING
Health & Safety Audits That Hold Up At The Next Inspection
A gap-registered site audit led by a CMIOSH-chartered advisor, scoped against ISO 45001 and the legislative frame your regulator uses. You leave with a written report and a prioritised corrective action register you can defend at an HSA or HSE visit.
What's inside the engagement
Audit Findings You Can Defend At Inspection
Three deliverables sit inside every engagement. Each one is written, signed off by a chartered safety professional, and built around your site rather than a generic checklist library.
Gap-registered site audit
A walked, photographed, and documented audit of your site against ISO 45001 and the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, or the relevant UK HSE standards, depending on jurisdiction. Findings come back as a numbered gap register.
- Management system, live work, and physical conditions covered
- Frontline interviews built into every visit
- Sector-specific checks including plant and machinery, work at heights, confined spaces and much more
RAMS, Method Statement, and Lift Plan review
Every live document on the project is reviewed against the actual scope of work. We develop and review RAMS, Method Statements, and Lift Plans specific to each project rather than pulling them from a template library.
- Project-specific, customised to each site
- Lift Plan compliance against General Application Regulation 42
- Documents needing a rewrite flagged individually
Corrective action register with chartered sign-off
You leave with a written corrective action register, prioritised by risk. Each action has a named owner and a target date. Every report is signed off by a CMIOSH-chartered advisor against the same legislative frame an HSA or HSE inspector uses. The register also slots into a wider QHSE structure if you are managing safety, quality and environment together.
- Prioritised actions, not a verbal walkthrough
- Chartered sign-off on every report
- Tracked in a detailed EHS software system purpose-built to suit the sector
- Defensible at the next regulator visit
Common failure modes
Where Audits Typically Go Wrong On High-Risk Sites
The expertise, safety laws, and standards relevant to your industry are what an inspector will measure you against. These are the patterns our chartered team sees on high-risk sites most often.
- Template-library RAMS and Method Statements that read as generic and cannot be defended against the live scope of work during inspection.
- A verbal walkthrough with no written gap register, leaving the project lead with nothing to track actions against and no record to hand the regulator.
- A junior assessor on a high-risk site, signing off documents they are not chartered to defend if challenged.
- Lift Plans that do not stand up to General Application Regulation 42, surfaced only when the lift is already on the critical path.
Audit Capacity At Chartered Scale
Why clients move to Coyle
Coyle Audits Versus A Typical Compliance Inspection
The difference shows up in who signs the report, what the paperwork looks like the day after, and how quickly we mobilise if you need a safety officer to close the actions.
| Feature | Coyle Group | Typical Consultancy |
|---|---|---|
| Mobilisation | 48 hours, in writing, project-ready | 4 to 6 weeks lead time |
| Reviewer | CMIOSH-chartered advisor on every site | Junior assessor on high-risk work |
| Documentation | RAMS, Method Statements, Lift Plans developed specific to each project | Template library pulled across clients |
| Reporting | Written gap register and prioritised corrective actions | Verbal walkthrough with no written register |
Mobilisation
Coyle Group
48 hours, in writing, project-ready
Typical Consultancy
4 to 6 weeks lead time
Reviewer
Coyle Group
CMIOSH-chartered advisor on every site
Typical Consultancy
Junior assessor on high-risk work
Documentation
Coyle Group
RAMS, Method Statements, Lift Plans developed specific to each project
Typical Consultancy
Template library pulled across clients
Reporting
Coyle Group
Written gap register and prioritised corrective actions
Typical Consultancy
Verbal walkthrough with no written register
The audit itself
Health And Safety Audit: What A Chartered Audit Actually Finds
A health and safety audit checks how your management system performs on the ground, not just on paper. It pairs a document review with a walked inspection of the site and conversations with the people doing the work, then measures what it finds against the frame your regulator uses: the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and the HSA in Ireland, or the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the HSE in Great Britain. Where your site runs to ISO 45001, the same visit can double as the internal audit clause 9.2 of the standard asks for.
What A Chartered Eye Finds That A Self-Check Misses
The pattern our chartered auditors see most often on high-risk sites is drift: a risk assessment that no longer matches how the job is actually being done, a RAMS pack written for a different scope of work, or a near miss that was never logged because nobody owned the process. A read-through of your paperwork will not catch that. A site walk, cross-checked against live conditions and a frontline interview, will, and it is what turns the audit checklist into a defensible finding rather than a box-ticked form.
Internal Audit Or External Audit
An internal audit run by your own EHS lead keeps ISO 45001 conformance on track between visits, but it is scored by someone who works the site every day and can miss what has become normal. An external audit brings in a chartered outsider who is not marking their own homework, which is what a client framework, an insurer, or an HSA or HSE inspector expects to see. Most of the sites we work with run both: an internal programme through the year, backed by an external safety audit from us on an annual cycle or ahead of a major lift, outage, or client onboarding. Between our visits, the internal programme runs on whatever safety data tracking your team already has in place.
What You Are Left Holding Afterwards
Every engagement ends the same way: a written health and safety audit report with a numbered gap register, and a corrective action plan with named owners and dates rather than a verbal walkthrough. If the audit surfaces a near miss or an incident that needs digging into properly, that becomes a separate accident investigation. If your site is a construction project, the same method runs against CDM and the Construction Regulations on our construction safety audit page.
Related engagements
Where Audits Sit In The Stack
Audits often feed straight into an investigation or a rewrite of safety policy. They run under the same chartered HSE function alongside our other safety consulting engagements, and plug into HSE Temporary Recruitment when you need a safety officer on the ground.
Accident Investigation
Independent root-cause analysis when the audit surfaces a near-miss, with regulatory reporting led by a chartered professional and a corrective action plan.
Safety Policy Development
Rewrite the RAMS, Method Statements, and Safe Systems of Work surfaced by the audit, authored to your site rather than to a template library.
Back to Safety Consulting
Return to the full Safety Consulting hub for CDM advisory, PSCS and PSDP appointments, and the managed HSE function.
What clients say
Trusted On High-Risk Sites Across Energy And Utilities
Operations and EHS leads at tier-one operators rate the chartered oversight we bring to every audit. These are their words, verbatim.
“A fresh pair of eyes: he will often spot the potential for hazard.”
“Gavin has supplied competent EHS personnel… we want to go further, making all our plants safer.”
“Coyle-Group have become leaders in the Wind Industry with a dedicated competent Health and Safety Team.”
Questions we hear most often
Audit And Inspection Questions Answered
What is included in a Coyle Group health and safety audit?
Every audit assesses your documented management system against the legislative frame the regulator uses, reviews active project paperwork including RAMS, Method Statements, and Lift Plans, inspects physical site conditions, and interviews frontline workers. You receive a written report with a gap register and a prioritised corrective action plan, signed off by a CMIOSH-chartered advisor.
How does an ISO 45001 audit differ from an HSA or HSE compliance inspection?
An ISO 45001 audit checks your occupational health and safety management system against the international standard. An HSA or HSE compliance inspection checks live site practice against statutory law, the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 in Ireland and the relevant HSE standards in Great Britain. Our engagement covers both lenses in one visit so a single corrective action register addresses standards conformance and statutory compliance together.
Do you charge a fixed fee for an audit, or do you work on a retainer?
A single site audit is priced as a fixed fee with scope agreed in writing before any work begins. If you need a rolling programme of inspections across multiple sites or ongoing chartered advisory between audit cycles, that runs as a monthly retainer with agreed scope and reporting outputs. We confirm the right structure on the first call.
Who writes the audit report, and is it defensible at inspection?
A CMIOSH-chartered advisor writes and signs off the report, using the same legislative framework an HSA or HSE inspector would apply. Our internal quality management system is itself independently audited by NSAI to ISO 45001, ISO 14001, and ISO 9001, which the regulator and your own clients can verify.
What do I get after the audit is delivered?
You receive three things: a written gap register, a prioritised corrective action plan with named owners and dates, and a marked-up list of any RAMS, Method Statements, or Lift Plans that need rewriting. If you want us to carry out those rewrites or put a safety officer on site to close the actions, we can mobilise anywhere globally within 48 hours, confirmed in writing.
How often should we run a health and safety audit?
Most of the sites we work with run one external safety audit a year, backed by internal checks in between under their own ISO 45001 programme. Higher-risk sites, or those going through a major lift, outage, or new client onboarding, should audit more often. We scope the right interval with you on the first call.
What is the difference between an internal and an external safety audit?
An internal audit is run by your own EHS lead and keeps day-to-day ISO 45001 conformance on track. An external audit brings in a chartered outsider who is not marking their own homework, which is what a client framework, an insurer, or an HSA or HSE inspector expects to see. We typically run as the external layer alongside your internal programme.
CMIOSH · ISO 45001 NSAI · 48-hour mobilisation
Get An Audit That Holds Up At Your Next Inspection
We scope the audit on the first call and put a CMIOSH-chartered advisor on your site, in writing, within 48 hours.
Book a Site Audit