Isolation Permits, Hot Works and Method Statements in Facilities Management

Isolation permits, hot works and method statements are how facilities teams authorise maintenance and contractor work that could restart a hazard. This guide covers what each record is, who owns it, and which documents prove the job was controlled and closed.

A contractor welding in a plant room, an electrician isolating a distribution board, a fitter grinding a bracket off a steel frame: the job is short. Flame, sparks or stored energy can injure someone or damage the plant. Facilities teams group that work under control of work. The records are isolation permits, hot-works permits, and method statements, often paired with a risk assessment as RAMS.

For the wider split between hard FM, soft FM and the rest of the facilities scope, read what is included in facilities management.

What Are Isolation Permits in Facilities Management?

An isolation permit is a written authorisation. It confirms that energy or a process has been isolated before work starts on plant or systems, so maintenance or contractor activity cannot restart a hazard by mistake.

The isolation is the physical work: switch off, lock off, prove the system is dead or safe, and vent or drain what is stored. The permit records what was isolated, how it is locked or tagged, who proved it, and who may remove the isolation when the job is finished.

That isolation covers the energy that could harm someone if it returned while the job was open: electrical supplies, gas, steam, stored pressure, moving parts and process fluids. Facilities teams use isolation permits on hard FM plant and on contractor work that touches live systems, including boilers, switchgear, HVAC, lifts and water services.

Planned maintenance schedules tell you which servicing is due. Where a contract uses SFG20, those schedules are the industry specification for that planned work. The isolation permit is a different record. It covers the controls for this visit, on this plant, with this crew.

What Are Hot Works in Facilities Management?

Hot works are temporary high-risk activities that involve flame, sparks or heat. Welding, cutting, brazing and grinding are the common cases. A site's fire risk assessment may also treat soldering, bitumen work or heat-gun use as hot work.

Sites usually require a hot-works permit, the controls for that location, and a fire watch before, during and after the job. The permit names the place, the time window, the task, how combustibles are cleared or protected, which extinguisher is at the point of work, and who watches for fire after the tools stop. The fire watch includes the period after the hot work ends, as well as the time the welder is in the room.

Isolation and hot works sit side by side when the job also needs the system made safe. Welding on pipework that must be drained and isolated is one example. The checks differ, so each authorisation should name its own controls.

How Method Statements and RAMS Fit

A method statement sets out how the job will be done safely: sequence, controls, PPE and emergency steps. The person issuing the permit checks that method before they authorise the job.

Teams often pair the method statement with a risk assessment and call the pair a RAMS (risk assessment method statement). The assessment names the hazards and who could be harmed. The method statement places those controls in the order the work will happen. What a RAMS is covers who writes one and what to check when a contractor sends one in.

The issuer should be able to match the plant, the location and the people in the method to the job on site. A statement written for another building, with the address swapped, describes the wrong job.

Learn MoreRisk Assessments & HazardsHow the hazards and controls are written down before the method statement is accepted.

Where Control of Work Sits in Hard FM and Soft FM

Control of work sits with hard FM and contractor management: permits, RAMS, isolations, and evidence that the work was authorised and closed out. That is the building, the plant and the people who work on them.

Soft FM is cleaning, waste, reception and guarding. Those services have standards and records of their own. The scope of both sides is set out in what is included in facilities management.

One facilities lead may coordinate both. The records stay separate. A cleaning schedule answers whether the workplace service ran. A closed hot-works permit answers whether that job was authorised and watched.

Who Owns the Permit, the Method and the Fire Watch

The organisation doing the work writes the method statement, because they decide how the task is carried out. On a contractor job that is the contractor. On in-house maintenance it is the team doing the work, or a competent person planning it for them.

The site issues the permit. In facilities management the issuer is often a named person in the hard FM or maintenance team, competent to confirm the isolation, the location and the time window, and to stop the job if the method does not match the site. The duty-holder for the premises remains accountable for those controls when a contractor holds the tools.

Hot works name a fire watch on the permit. That person is briefed on what to look for and stays for the period stated after the hot work stops. A toolbox talk or briefing records that the crew has seen the current method and the permit conditions.

Learn MorePeople & TrainingHow competence is held on the person, with the training record beside the name on the briefing.

Which Records Prove Control of Work

An auditor, a client or a fire officer follows a trail from the job to the close-out. The records that make the trail are:

• Permits issued and permits closed, with who issued them and when the isolation was removed or the fire watch ended
• The RAMS or method statement accepted for the job, at the revision that was briefed
• Isolation certificates or lock-off records, where the site uses them with the permit
• Toolbox talks or briefing sheets for the crew
• Fire-watch logs, including the period after hot work
• Corrective actions when a check failed, a permit was refused, or the work left the method

The method statement has to be the revision that was briefed. A newer draft in a shared folder, or an older copy on a contractor's laptop, is a different document. From the permit, a reader should reach the method, the isolation, the fire watch and the close-out.

Learn MoreDocuments & PoliciesHow the method statement stays on a controlled version, so the copy checked for the job is the one in force.

A compliance operations platform can help assemble that evidence as work happens. It does not “make you compliant” by itself. Those records are how you operate safe premises, and prove it.

Control of Work Questions Answered

What are isolation permits in facilities management?

Written authorisations that confirm energy or process isolation before work starts on plant or systems, so maintenance or contractor activity cannot restart a hazard by mistake.

What are hot works in FM?

Temporary high-risk activities that involve flame, sparks or heat (for example welding, cutting or grinding). Sites usually need a hot-works permit, controls and a fire watch before, during and after the job.

How do method statements fit?

A method statement (often with a risk assessment as RAMS) sets out how the job will be done safely: sequence, controls, PPE and emergency steps. It is checked before permits are issued.

Where does this sit in what is included in FM?

Control of work sits with hard FM and contractor management: permits, RAMS, isolations and evidence that the work was authorised and closed out. Cleaning and reception are soft FM.

What records matter?

Issued and closed permits, RAMS, isolation certificates, toolbox talks, fire-watch logs and corrective actions, linked so an auditor can follow the trail. A compliance operations platform can help assemble that evidence as work happens. It does not “make you compliant” by itself.