Compliance & standards
What is NASC?
NASC is the National Access and Scaffolding Confederation, the UK trade body for the scaffolding industry. It publishes the technical and safety guidance the trade works to, including TG20 and SG4.
NASC guidance is not law, but it is the reference point. A scaffold built to NASC guidance is a scaffold built to what the industry accepts as good practice, and departing from it is something that has to be justified rather than simply done.
Membership is also a commercial signal. Many principal contractors ask whether a scaffolding contractor is a member, and audit against the guidance NASC publishes.
The two publications a working scaffolder meets most often are TG20, which is the technical guidance for tube and fitting scaffolds, and SG4, which covers preventing falls during scaffolding operations.
What goes wrong on site
- Treating NASC guidance as optional because it is not legislation — clients and insurers do not read it that way.
- Citing an old edition of a guidance document as the current one.