An inspection and test plan is a list. One line per stage of a package of work, in the order it will be built, and against each stage: what gets inspected or tested, against what acceptance criterion, how often, who holds the work until it is seen, who witnesses, who reviews the record afterwards, and which record proves it happened. It is a plan, not a record. The checklist filled in on the day is the record; the plan is what says, before the first day, that the checklist would exist.
Written from the side of the desk that reviews subcontractors' plans, here is what one needs and who puts their name to it.
Where the requirement comes from
No regulation says "produce an inspection and test plan". The duty behind it is regulation 7 of the Building Regulations 2010: building work is carried out with adequate and proper materials and in a workmanlike manner. A plan is how a contractor shows that workmanship was checked rather than assumed. A contractor running its quality system to ISO 9001:2015 has a second reason: the standard asks for controlled production, release of work only when the planned checks are done, and a record of what was checked and by whom. The building contract usually adds a third, requiring notice before work the contract administrator wants to see is covered up, which is what a witness point is.
On a higher-risk building the records the plan points to form part of the golden thread the Building Safety Act 2022 requires.
The four letters
- H, hold. The work stops until the named person has seen it and released it. Reinforcement before a pour; the cavity before the cladding closes it. A skipped hold is a non-conformance.
- W, witness. The party is given the agreed notice and may attend. If they do not, the work proceeds and the record says they were invited.
- S, surveillance. Checked and recorded by the party doing the work, without stopping it. The bulk of a package.
- R, review of the record. The party sees the completed sheet or certificate afterwards, nothing else.
The letters are the client's decision, agreed at the pre-start, which is why a template leaves them blank. A plan that arrives with every line marked H was written by someone who never intends to hold anything.
What the plan does not contain
Acceptance values. The tolerance for a floor, the cover to a bar, the pressure for a test: these are in the specification and the data sheet, and they change with the edition. A plan that prints them goes stale the day the standard is revised, and a stale number on a working sheet is worse than a blank. The acceptance column is written in from the specification, clause by clause, by the person with the specification open.
Who signs it
Three people, in order.
The subcontractor prepares it, because it is their sequence and their records. A plan handed down by the principal contractor is one the subcontractor never read.
The principal contractor's reviewer accepts it, having checked three things: every stage the package has is on the plan, every record the R column names exists, and every hold falls before the work it protects is covered. Acceptance does not transfer the subcontractor's responsibility for the work.
The client's representative — clerk of works, contract administrator or employer's agent — agrees the H, W, S and R columns and the notice period. That signature turns a witness point into a contractual obligation to give notice.
When the specification, sequence or subcontractor changes, all three sign again.
What a template does not do
A template gives the stages a trade normally has, in their usual order, with the record each points to. It does not know your specification, your sequence or your client, and it does not decide who holds what. The competent person adapts it, and no document makes anyone compliant. Why we will never call a document "compliant".
Documents for this work
- The inspection and test plans bundle — one plan for each of thirty-six trades
- Inspection and Test Plan — Concrete and Formwork
- Inspection and Test Plan — Roofing
- Inspection and Test Plan — Electrical
- Inspection and Test Plan — Passive Fire Protection
- Inspection and Test Plan — Package Cover Sheet — the cover the client signs, with the register of area sheets; where a plan exists, its section 3 is completed as "see KD-ITP-XX-nnn" and the letters are agreed on the plan, so nothing is agreed twice
- Hold-Point Register — every hold on the job, and who released it
- Quality inspection checklists — the area sheets the plan's record column points to