Purpose of Writing Inspection Reports

Purpose of Writing Inspection Reports

Writing inspection reports is an indispensable part of conducting inspections. The main purpose of writing such a report is to present and document the findings obtained from an inspection. The inspection report must be written clearly and depict all elements of the inspection vividly so that it becomes easy for the prospective audiences to read and understand. It is usual that some audiences will want to know the exact regulatory citations, language and technical issues from an inspection report. On the other hand, other audiences may want to know detailed information of the inspection so that they can note the trends of the report. Law enforcing agencies as well as prosecutorial agencies may require knowing specific details of violations noted in the report. They also may require the evidence obtained during the inspection. However, the inspection report, in all cases, serves to present and document the findings of the inspector to the reader. The aim of writing this article is to remind the inspectors that they should aware of the main purposes of writing an inspection report. However, the main purposes of writing inspection reports are given below and all inspectors should write their inspection reports:

1. To Examine Compliance

An inspection report may lead to an enforcement action at any time. In most cases, the failure of inspections to identify violations accelerates an immediate enforcement action. So, it is very important for the inspectors to write a complete inspection report. A complete inspection report enables an agency to keep the record of whether each business is in compliance with environmental regulations. Generally, compliance issues are not usual and may occur years after an inspection. In case of the occurrence of compliance issue, the inspection report becomes the first piece of evidence for lawsuit.

2. To Identify Repeat Violators

In some cases, the repetition of enforcement action is required against those businesses that are unruly or repeat violators. Inspectors should identify these unruly businesses or repeat violators by collecting and reviewing the compliance information of their past inspection reports. This compliance information gives an inspector the necessary insight into a business’s overall environmental management practices and helps him to take necessary actions.

3. To Present Accurate Information

Well-documented inspection reports provide the audiences with necessary information that allows them to quickly assess the regulatory status of the business. Such reports also allow them to determine whether the necessary enforcement actions have been taken or not.  In addition, agencies may use inspection reports to view the level of oversight that is required to assess the overall status.

4. To Keep Agency Record

An inspection report plays a significant role in keeping the record of the inspection findings. This record can be used as a basis to refresh the memory of an inspector for any required testimony.  Furthermore, agency records are frequently used during land transactions, epidemiological studies, site remediation, site closure, and other activities.

5. To Maintain Business Follow-up

The main purpose of writing a complete inspection report is to provide the business owner/operator with a clear and specific direction about the violations occurred and how to correct them. All the elements of an inspection report should be written in a simple and plain language so that anyone in the company can understand it and take necessary actions as the report suggests. This saves inspector's time as he/she need not explain details to the operator.

What is an Inspection Report | Definition and Meaning

What is an Inspection Report | Definition and Meaning

The inspection report is a written statement or document prepared by a licensed inspection professional. This report summarizes information about the condition of someone's property, life, health, and so on. The main purpose of writing an inspection report is to correctly communicate and document the findings of an inspection. In some cases, inspection reports are lengthy and detailed and run to many pages. In other cases, they are short enough as they do not include notations found in a file document, fee information, company status, or other pieces of information that are less important. In brief, the inspection report is a document or documents containing the inspection related information produced or generated by an inspection professional. It is unfortunate but true that there are commonalities for writing a good inspection report around the world including the USA.

As the procedure of inspection report writing is highly complicated, proper guidance and training is essential for the inspectors. This observation is based on some incomplete inspection reports found during their evaluation by some inspection report writing specialists in the USA. So, the utmost effort should be made to uniquely tailor an inspection report with relevant information to meet the needs of the authority concerned. While writing inspection reports, some basic requirements should be followed strictly so that they can gain expected standard and acceptability of the concerned authorities. These basic requirements can be maintained by both statute and good inspection practices. It is important for all inspectors to make sure that the basic requirements and essential elements related to inspection reports are being included in all inspection reports.

The inspection professionals should also pay much attention to structure the formats of their reports. It should be done in such a way that presents clear and objective inspection protocols. Since common sense and professional judgment are two most important elements in writing good inspection reports, all inspection professionals should be aware of these two facts while presenting information and findings on their reports. They should also bear in mind that good inspection reports are necessary not only for documentation, enforcement, clear and specific public disclosure and follow-up compliance measures but also for the owners or operators who are in need of the same information to understand exactly what they need to be performed to come into compliance.

However, nowadays many agencies are moving towards electronic inspection tools. And the purpose of using such tools is to present challenges in documenting observations in a format of narration. For instance, by using electronic checkboxes one can identify some observations more easily. On the other hand, without using electronic checkboxes, one must include the pieces of information manually, such as information about property where the violation observed or information about a person on his financial standing, physical condition, habits, morals, and so on. Though these tools are not perfect enough, they have some capabilities to record narrative information electronically.