Why your ITP keeps getting rejected (and the ten-minute fix)

We have returned more inspection and test plans than we have approved. Not because contractors cannot build, but because the ITP they sent describes intent rather than evidence, and a reviewer cannot approve intent. The faults are the same every time, and each one can be fixed in the time it takes to make a brew. Here is the pass we would make over your ITP before you resubmit it.

Why it came back

An ITP has one job: to tell everyone, before the work starts, what will be inspected, against what, by whom, and what record will prove it. A reviewer working for the principal contractor or the client reads it with three questions in mind. Can I measure this? Can I find the clause it came from? Will I be there when it matters? An ITP that fails any of those questions is returned, usually with a comment such as "acceptance criteria to be developed" that tells you nothing about how to fix it. We set out the five reasons in the ITP guide; this post is the fix.

Minutes one to three: the acceptance criterion

Read every acceptance criterion and ask whether two competent people could disagree about whether it was met. "Installed to a satisfactory standard in accordance with the specification" fails: satisfactory to whom? Replace it with the value and the method. For a distribution board: "terminals torqued to the manufacturer's value with a calibrated tool and torque-marked; no exposed copper outside the terminal; conductors identified to Regulation 514". For a pour: "slump within the specified range at delivery, cubes taken at the frequency in the specification, cover checked with a spacer gauge before the pour is released". The criterion should read like the instruction to the person holding the clipboard, because it is.

Minutes four and five: the citation, at the current edition

Every line cites the clause it is checked against, and the edition matters. An electrical ITP citing BS 7671:2018+A2:2022 in September 2026 tells the reviewer that the plan was copied from an older job and nobody checked it. The current edition is BS 7671:2018+A4:2026, and the packs we build record that A3:2024 ceases to be current on 15 October 2026. Fire alarm ITPs citing BS 5839-1:2017 clause numbers are worse, because the 2025 edition renumbered the clauses; a line that says "commissioning to clause 39" now points at certification. Check every cited standard against a current index before you issue. It takes minutes and it is the single most visible sign of a plan that was actually thought about.

Minutes six and seven: the hold points

A hold point means work stops until the named party has attended and signed. A witness point means the party is invited, and if they do not turn up within the notice period the work proceeds and the contractor signs. Surveillance means they may turn up unannounced. Review means they look at the document afterwards. Most rejected ITPs mark everything as a hold point for every party, which is not a plan, it is a way of never getting the client's engineer to site. Choose the genuine holds: the pre-pour, the pre-close-up of a service void, the pre-energisation, the pressure test. Everything else is witness or surveillance, and the notice period, typically 24 or 48 hours, is written on the ITP so it cannot be argued later. Then agree the holds with the reviewer before you issue, so the approval is a formality.

Minute eight: the verifying record

Each line names the document that proves it happened: the check sheet number, the test certificate, the delivery ticket, the calibration record, the photograph log. "Inspection record" is not a name. "Activity check sheet E-014, board serial number recorded" is. If the line has no record, it has no evidence, and an auditor will find that a year later when a defect appears and the site team has moved on.

Minutes nine and ten: the sign-off columns

Three parties, three columns, before the plan is issued: the contractor, the principal contractor, and the client or their engineer, each with name, signature and date. Add a fourth for a third party where the contract has one, such as a building control inspector or a warranty surveyor. A plan that has to be redrawn to add a column after the client asks where their signature goes has lost the reviewer's confidence for the rest of the job. The check sheet that sits behind each line carries the same three columns, so a signed sheet and a signed ITP line say the same thing.

Then the frequency, and the resubmission

Every line states how often: every board, every pour, one in ten, one per batch. "As required" is not a frequency. When the pass is done, issue at the next revision number with a short covering note that says what changed against the reviewer's comments, line by line. Reviewers approve plans that answer their comments; they return plans that make them look for the changes.

What this looks like done

The free ITP for LV distribution boards is a worked example of the whole pass: 26 lines, every criterion measurable, every citation at the current edition, hold and witness points chosen rather than sprayed, a named record on every line and three sign-off columns. Compare it with the plan you have just had returned. If yours is already at that standard, the rejection was about something else and you should ask the reviewer directly; if it is not, you now know what to fix.