Keeping a register of what is actually standing

Inspection records accumulate steadily on most sites. What is far less common is anything that says how many structures exist to be inspected — which means the coverage figure, the number that actually matters, is unknowable. A folder of inspection reports says how many were checked. It never says how many were not.

What the register has to hold

• –Every structure, identified the same way as its tag and handover record
• –Where it is, described so somebody unfamiliar can find it
• –What it is and what it was designed for, with a reference to the design basis
• –When it was erected and handed over
• –Its current status: available, restricted, out of use, or struck
• –Any adaptations since handover

Struck structures are where registers drift

Registers rot in a specific way: structures get struck and stay on the list. Inspection rounds then generate chasing for something that no longer exists, people learn to ignore the discrepancy, and within a few months the register is treated as approximately right rather than right. Recording the strike is as important as recording the erection, and it is the half that routinely gets skipped because the job is finished and everyone has moved on.

It is also the commercial record

A register that knows when a structure went up, when it was adapted and when it came down is the same data that answers hire-period questions and supports variations. Firms that keep one for compliance reasons usually find it settles more arguments about money than about safety.

Common mistakes

• –Inspecting without a register, so coverage cannot be stated
• –Structures described rather than uniquely identified
• –Struck structures left on the register indefinitely
• –No record of status, so availability depends on the tag alone
• –Adaptations recorded elsewhere and never reflected against the structure
• –Holding the register on site only, with nothing centrally

In practice: the register that was six structures out

A firm reconciled its register against what was physically standing for the first time in a year. It found three structures that had been struck and never removed from the list, two that had been erected and never added, and one recorded at the wrong address after a job moved between phases.

None of those were dangerous in themselves. Collectively they meant the firm's inspection coverage figure had been wrong all year in both directions — chasing inspections on structures that no longer existed, and not chasing on two that did.

Who owns the register

Registers degrade when updating them is everybody's job. The practical arrangement is one person accountable for it being current, with erections and strikes reported to them as events rather than remembered at the end of a job.

A quarterly physical walk is the backstop. It is dull, it takes half a day, and it is the only thing that catches the discrepancies that paper alone will never show.

Worth knowing: the register survives the job

A register built per job disappears when the job closes, taking the history with it. A register held at business level — every structure the firm has standing, across every site — is what allows portfolio questions to be answered: how many structures are up, how many are past their quoted hire, which are overdue an inspection.

• –Hold the register at business level, not per job
• –Keep struck structures as history rather than deleting them
• –Make it answer portfolio questions, not just site ones

Where this connects: the register settles commercial arguments too

A register is usually built for compliance reasons — it is the only way to state coverage rather than activity. What firms discover afterwards is that the same data settles more arguments about money than about safety, because it knows when a structure went up, when it was adapted and when it came down.

That is the answer to a disputed hire period, the evidence behind a variation, and the record that shows a structure stood for fourteen weeks rather than the eight that were quoted. Firms that resent maintaining it for compliance reasons tend to maintain it happily once it has won an argument.

• –Hold the register at business level, not per job
• –Record strikes as diligently as erections
• –Keep struck structures as history rather than deleting them
• –Make it answer portfolio questions, not just site ones
• –Walk it against the buildings quarterly
• –Give one person accountability for it being current

One practical test: walk it against the buildings

Take the register and physically visit every site on it over a day. Count what is actually standing, and compare. Firms doing this for the first time routinely find structures struck months earlier still listed, one or two erected and never added, and at least one recorded at the wrong address after a job moved phases.

None of those are dangerous on their own. Together they mean the coverage figure has been wrong in both directions all year — chasing inspections on structures that no longer exist, and not chasing on ones that do.